


A Chamber of Snakes

by disaster_top



Series: A Snake in Lion's clothing [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Canon Rewrite, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Ginny and Astoria are friends because I said so, Gryffindor Pansy Parkinson, Harry slowly warms up to the idea of being friends with a Slytherin, Hermione and Daphne bond over how impulsive Pansy is, Hogwarts Inter-House Friendships, I will make Lockhart suffer, Light Angst, Misgendering, Not Beta Read, Pansy Parkinson-centric, Pre-Relationship, Snape doesn't know how to speak to kids, Trans Female Character, Trans Pansy Parkinson, Transphobia, eventually, so does Ron, still not much pansmione for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25162561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disaster_top/pseuds/disaster_top
Summary: After last year's mess, Pansy was sure that her second year at Hogwarts would be normal.Thank Merlin the universe liked to prove her wrong.------------Sequel to 'A Snake in Lion's clothing'. If you haven't read it I would recommend reading that first before reading this.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass & Ginny Weasley, Daphne Greengrass & Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger & Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson, Pansy Parkinson & Harry Potter, Pansy Parkinson & Ron Weasley
Series: A Snake in Lion's clothing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802563
Comments: 21
Kudos: 102





	1. Second term

Pansy’s summer was pretty basic and uneventful. She was once again forced to partake in the innumerable get-togethers and brunches that her mother would drag her to. And of course, she had to spend the whole summer being someone she wasn’t.

Thankfully the Malfoys were around most of the time so Pansy would usually be able to run off with Draco in the gardens around Parkinson Park while their parents were _mingling_.

Whatever that meant.

The beginning of the school year was getting closer and closer and Pansy would forever be thankful for that. Her mother had lessened the number of brunches she had to attend in favor of having her father take her out to get school supplies. Which is why she was now in Diagon Alley.

Phillip was slowly leading his daughter through nearly every shop, not knowing exactly what Pansy needed besides the new Nimbus 2001 he had promised to get her.

“Uh, father, why do I need so many books from this one guy?” Pansy asked, squinting as she read through her school supplies. Phillip frowned. “Who is it?”

“Some guy called Gilderoy Lockhart.” Pansy heard her father grumble under his breath in annoyance. “Circe’s tits. That idiot apparently got a teaching job at Hogwarts as a DADA teacher. Don’t believe anything he says Pansy, he might be a Ravenclaw but I can tell you that he is the most incompetent man I have ever had the misfortune of meeting, and I know Goyle’s father.” Pansy snickered. “I hear you loud and clear father.”

They stood outside Flourish and Blotts, planning to get all of the books from Lockhart that Pansy would somehow need for Defence against the Dark Arts. Phillip scoffed when he saw the sign outside the bookstore. It read:

_GILDEROY LOCKHART_

_Will be signing copies of his autobiography_

_MAGICAL ME_

_Today 12:30 - 4:30 pm_

“This man is unbelievable,” Phillip muttered, observing the crowd of middle-aged witches in the shop, no doubt waiting to see Lockhart. He and Pansy entered the shop, trying to stay away from the crowd.

“Now, get only the books that are on the list then we will go to get you your new broom alright?” Pansy jumped up and down giddily. “Yes father, this will only take a moment I swear.” Phillip smiled down at her. “It’s okay Pansy, take your time.”

Pansy excitedly bounded through Flourish and Blotts, wanting to get her books quickly so that she could get the Nimbus 2001. While running through the shelves she turned a corner and accidentally ran into someone.

She groaned, rubbing her head. “Oh, god. I’m sorry-” The person began to apologize until they recognized her. “Pansy?” The girl opened her eyes and grinned. “Potter?” They both hugged each other, laughing. “Well, it’s funny that I’d run into you here Harry.” Harry nodded, smiling brightly. “Yeah, I’m here with the Weasley’s. You won’t believe what happened to me this summer.”

Pansy listened as Harry recounted how the Dursleys had locked him in his room and put bars on the windows. She was amused when Harry explained that Ron and the Weasley twins broke him out in a flying car. “Please tell me Mrs. Weasley grounded them,” Pansy asked.

Harry laughed. “You can say that, but how was your summer?” Pansy groaned. “It was awful, every day my mother had these weird brunches planned and she kept introducing me to the daughters of prestigious pureblood families, thank Salazar Draco was there.”

Harry smiled at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, it is still neat that Malfoy helped you through that. Even if he is a slimy git.” Pansy snickered.

They were both suddenly swept up in a crowd of witches as some wizard nearby spoke.

“Calmly ladies...No, don’t push there...Mind the books now…”

Pansy hissed, trying to move away from the crowd, luckily Mrs. Weasley spotted them and pulled Pansy along with Harry out of the crowd. “Now, there you are Harry. It’s nice to see you again Pansy. Is your father here?” Pansy smiled. “Um, yeah he’s probably near the entran-”

They were all pushed by a man carrying a huge camera. “Out of the way!” He yelled, closing in on the man who was standing on a podium in the middle of the store. “This is for the Daily Prophet.” Harry frowned. “That wasn’t very nice.” He mumbled to Pansy. She simply shrugged.

“It can’t be, Harry Potter?”

Lockhart shouted the crowd parted for him as he grabbed Harry and pulled him towards the podium. Pansy shrieked as she was dragged along since Harry had grabbed her arm as he was pulled. Lockhart looked Pansy over for a moment before his eyes shone.

“Nice big smile both of you, I’m sure that a picture of the Great Harry Potter and the Parkinson heir standing with a wizard such as myself will make the front page.”

Pansy and Harry blinked as a flash of light illuminated them for a moment. Lockhart patted their shoulder roughly as they tried to move away from him. “Ladies and Gentlemen.” He exclaimed proudly. “What a truly extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time!”

Pansy saw her father in the crowd and sent a pleading look towards him, begging to be pulled away from this situation.

Lockhart shook them roughly as he continued. “When these young prodigies here stepped into Flourish and Blotts to purchase my autobiography entitled ‘ _Magical Me_ ’, they had no idea they would not only be leaving with the entirety of my books free of charge but they will also be experiencing the real magical me. Yes, I will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”

The crowd around them cheered and clapped for Lockhart. Regrettably, Harry and Pansy were both handed a stack of books before they were able to escape. Pansy quickly slipped away from the crowd, trying to look for her father.

She and Harry instead found themselves near the store opening with one of the Weasley kids. Harry held the books out towards Ginny. “You have these.” Pansy frowned as she saw the glee in the redhead’s eyes. “Who are you?” Pansy asked.

Ginny looked up at her cautiously. “Uh, Pansy this is Ginny, Ron’s sister,” Harry said. Pansy hummed, waving at the girl with her free hand. “Nice to meet you I guess.”

“Bet you loved that, didn’t you Potter?” A voice sneered from behind them. Harry tried to straighten up and look intimidating as they turned towards the person. Pansy chuckled. “Hey Draco, you should know how famous Potter is.”

Draco sneered. “Famous Harry Potter, can’t even go to a bookstore without making the front page.” Pansy raised an eyebrow in amusement. “ Well, with someone from a prestigious family like myself accompanying him how was he not going to make the front page?”

Draco tried to contain his smile. “Dammit Parkinson you’re not supposed to make me laugh, I’m trying to be intimidating!”

Pansy held her hand up. “My apologies, darling, I couldn’t tell if you were serious or not.” Draco sniffed. “Whatever, I’m sure Potter enjoyed himself.” He said, glaring at Harry. “Leave him alone, he didn’t want to be put in that situation!” Ginny said. Pansy was surprised to hear the girl speak up. Draco laughed. “What’s this Potter? Got yourself a girlfriend?”

“Now now Draco, what have I told you about antagonizing others?”

Pansy and Draco froze as Lucius Malfoy entered the store, standing behind Draco menacingly. “Hello, Mr. Malfoy. We were simply discussing things.” Lucius nodded towards Pansy. “It is nice to see you again Paul, I assume your father is here as well?” Pansy gulped. “Yes, he is speaking with the Weasleys.”

Lucius hid his disdain well. “Hmm, I do not know how and why your father bothers to speak with such filth.” Pansy grabbed Harry’s arm, urging him to remain silent.

Ron appeared behind them. “Hey Harry, Pansy, what are you doing h-” He paused when he saw Draco and Lucius standing in front of them.

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “You keep...interesting company Paul.” He grabbed the book inside of Ginny’s cauldron, looking at the beaten-up book on Transfiguration with barely contained disgust.

Pansy cleared her throat. “Well, perhaps you can give the girl her book back and I can go fetch my father so that you can speak?”

Lucius shook his head, shoving the book back into Ginny’s cauldron. “That is quite alright, just inform your father that I was by, come along Draco.”

Pansy waved at Draco as the boy followed his father out of the store. “What a git, now I see that it runs in the family,” Harry muttered bitterly.

Pansy shrugged. “We should find our parents. I don’t want to spend another minute in this store.” Ron laughed. “And why is that?” Pansy gestured towards the crowd. “The sooner I leave, the sooner my father will get me my Nimbus 2001.”

Ron gasped. “Are you serious? The broom just came out this week!” Pansy smirked. “Perks of being rich, my father promised that if I went to all my mother’s stupid brunches he would get me the newest broom.” Ron pumped the air with his fist. “Great, with that Gryffindor will definitely win the Quidditch Cup!”

***-***-***

The week passed quickly and soon Pansy was being dropped off at King’s Cross station by her father as the Hogwarts Express waited.

“Now listen to me, Pansy, if any funny business happens you owl me immediately okay?” Pansy nodded. “Okay, father.” Phillip sighed. “Good, I don’t want you to put yourself in danger like last year.” Pansy smiled up at her father, hugging him. “I will try to stay out of trouble father but no promises.”

Phillip laughed, grabbing her trunk and helping her into the Hogwarts Express. “Okay, be good and owl me often. I want to make sure that you are enjoying yourself.” They both hugged before Phillip pulled back, waving at Pansy as the girl entered the train, immediately trying to find an empty compartment. She hadn’t seen Ron or Harry so she assumed that they probably hadn’t arrived yet.

She settled into the compartment, kicking her legs up on the seat in front of her and waited. Hermione knocked on the compartment door, a smile on her face. “Knock knock.” Pansy chuckled. “Who’s there?” Hermione laughed, pushing the door open. “It’s nice to see you too Pansy. How was your summer?”

“Awful, have you seen Ron and Harry?” Pansy asked as she felt the train begin moving forward. Hermione frowned. “Um, no. I assumed they were with you.” Pansy’s frown deepened. “That’s strange…” Hermione shrugged, sitting on the seat in front of Pansy. “They might be in another compartment.”

Pansy hummed. “Maybe,” She said unhelpfully. Another knock was heard from the compartment and Pansy grinned when she recognized Blaise, Daphne, and Daphne’s sister, Astoria.

They all entered, Daphne sat next to Pansy and Astoria settled between them while Blaise sat next to an uncomfortable-looking Hermione.

“Well well well, what has Pansy Parkinson been doing this summer?” Blaise drawled. Pansy sneered. “You would know Zabini, weren’t you the one who got me in trouble at the Bulstrode mansion?” Blaise shook his head. “I plead the fifth.”

Daphne laughed. “Yeah right, Draco was there and he saw you, Blaise.” The boy whined. “My childhood friends have abandoned me. Granger is my new friend now.”

Daphne turned to Hermione in exasperation. “Hello Granger, I’m Daphne Greengrass, this is my sister Astoria and that idiot is Blaise Zabini.” Hermione smiled nervously. “Uh, well met?”

Pansy held her hands up. “Don’t be so tense Granger, my friends are your friends!” Blaise snorted. “Don’t let Draco hear you say that.”

Pansy shrugged. “I don’t care, Granger is the only thing that helped me get through my exams last year.” Daphne elbowed her. “Yeah, while you were off fighting some wizard under the castle.” Pansy cleared her throat nervously. “I plead the fifth.”

Hermione chuckled. “She’s right you know, you were too reckless while we were looking for the Stone.” Daphne cheered. “Yes! Finally, someone sees it!”

Pansy grumbled. “Yeah well in the end I saved the school so.” She stuck her tongue out at Daphne and Hermione. Both girls chuckled. “Real mature Pans.” Blaise sneered. “Like you’re any better Blaise.” Pansy retorted.

Astoria smiled up at Pansy. “Daphne says that I’ll have a lot of fun at Hogwarts!” Pansy nodded, smiling down at the little girl brightly. “Of course darling, though I would recommend you stay away from Filch...And Snape.”

Daphne laughed. “Don’t frighten my sister Pansy.” Astoria pouted adorably. “I’m not scared, I’m going to be a Slytherin!” Pansy chuckled. “That’s the spirit! And if you do get stuck in Gryffindor I’m sure I can help you around.” Hermione nodded along with Pansy.

The train ride was spent with all four of them taking turns recounting stories from their summer. Hermione was amused at how enraptured and interested the three Purebloods were when she went into detail on how her parents worked and how it was important to people’s dental hygiene.

Pansy had completely forgotten that Harry and Ron were missing until she was seated in the Gryffindor Common room and Parvati was passing around the latest edition of the Daily Prophet. It turns out that both boys had missed the Express and had taken a flying car through London to arrive at the school.

Seamus, Dean, and Parvati joined her laughter as they read through the article though Neville claiming that the boys could be expelled sobered them up a little. “They wouldn’t expel them over that right?” Dean asked worriedly. Parvati shrugged. “They did break the law but they are only second-years.”

At that moment Hermione entered the Common room followed by two tired-looking boys. Pansy stood immediately. “Potter, Weasley, did you two seriously fly here in a bloody car?” Ron nodded. Seamus hollered. “Oh, the absolute mad lad!”

Pansy laughed. “You two missed a bonding session on the train.” Harry frowned. “We did?” Pansy nodded. “Yeah, Hermione actually held an hour-long conversation with Daphne and Blaise.” Hermione chuckled. “Blaise most definitely tuned out our conversation but Daphne was nice. And her sister was adorable.”

Dean nodded. “Yes well, Daphne is nice to everyone.” Ron sighed heavily. “I suppose some Slytherin are alright.” Pansy gasped. “Did Ronald Weasley just say the Slytherin aren’t horrible?! Oh, hell must have frozen over!” Ron turned a strange shade of red. “No! I just realized that some are okay.”

Seamus snorted. “Bulstrode gave him some food while Nott was helping him study last year.”

Pansy guffawed. “All they had to do was offer you food?” Ron huffed and made his way up into the boy’s dorm. Hermione sighed. “It would be best if we all went to sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak!” Seamus exclaimed. Parvati laughed. “Well, I suppose that makes me weak, see you tomorrow.” They said their goodnights as most of them went to go sleep. Pansy chuckled silently to herself, the year hadn’t even begun and Harry and Ron had already made a mess.

***-***-***

The next day brought even more entertainment to the school. Ron’s mother had apparently found out about the car incident and had sent a Howler to Ron which he had opened during breakfast in the Great Hall.

Pansy had honestly never seen anyone turn the shade of red that Ron was turning. Everyone in the Great Hall had turned to see what was happening and she could see most of the Slytherin table laughing at Ron’s misfortune, not that she could blame them.

As soon as the screeching letter stopped, Hermione looked up from her book and gave Ron an unimpressed stare. “I don’t know what you expected Ron.” Harry cut in before another fight started. “Why don’t we all go to our first class huh? It might take the edge off.” Pansy patted the boy’s back. “Potter is right, measures were taken and people were punished, no need to remember this event anymore right?”

Ron scoffed. “I’m sure you will use this as blackmail sometime.” Pansy cooed. “You know me so well Ron. Come on ‘Mione, Professor Sprout awaits.” Hermione shook her head in amusement but followed after the trio as they headed to their Herbology class.

***-***-***

Pansy stared down at the line of potted plants that lined the table in front of her. Seamus leaned towards her. “What is this thing?” Pansy slowly responded. “I don’t bloody know Finnigan but I think it can somehow kill us if it wanted to.”

Seamus nodded to himself, observing the plant more as Professor Sprout passed around earmuffs. “Now, today we will be repotting Mandrakes, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrakes?”

Hermione immediately lifted her hand to answer the question. “The Mandrake is a powerful restorative, it is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed to their original state but the cry of a Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it.”

Professor Sprout nodded. “Well said, twenty points to Gryffindor. Now, the Mandrakes that we have here are still young but their cries can still knock you out for a few hours, so everyone put on your earmuffs and we’ll get started.”

Pansy secured the earmuffs over her ears, not wanting to collapse in the middle of class. When everyone had put their earmuffs on, Professor Sprout grabbed the top of one of the plants and pulled it out of the pot. Pansy grimaced as she saw the face of the plant that had been hidden in the pot. She could tell that it was probably screaming bloody murder as Professor Sprout moved it to another pot, drizzling more dirt and fertilizers on top of it.

The teacher gestured for them to do it themselves in groups of two. Seamus stood near Pansy, pointing at the pot in front of them. Pansy nodded at him, grabbing the leaves of the Mandrake. She waited for Seamus to get the second pot ready before pulling the Mandrake out.

The thing was much uglier looking up close but Pansy tried to ignore it as she directed it towards the pot that Seamus was holding. She placed it inside of the pot and helped Seamus as he scooped up more dirt into the container.

By the end of the lesson, they were all sweaty and tired. Pansy stared down at her hands that were still stained with dirt even after she had washed them thoroughly.

“What do we have this afternoon?” Ron grumbled, glaring at the broken wand he had used during Transfiguration. Pansy frowned. “We have Defence against the Dark Arts. Shouldn’t you owl home and get a new one?” She said, gesturing towards the redhead’s broken wand.

Ron scoffed. “And get another Howler? No thanks.” Pansy shrugged. “Do you really think Lockhart is going to be our DADA professor?” Ron gestured unhelpfully. “I don’t know, either way, we had to buy all of his books. Have you read them?" Pansy laughed. “Are you kidding me? Of course not.”

As they both entered the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom they were temporarily rendered speechless as they watched Colin Creevey taking pictures of Harry and Lockhart.

“Am I having a stroke?” Ron mumbled. Pansy shrugged. “If you are I guess I am too.”

Harry eventually managed to untangle himself from Lockhart and immediately sped towards Ron and Pansy. Ron raised an eyebrow at him playfully. “You look like a tomato, just saying.” Pansy cut in. “You better hope Creevey doesn’t meet Ginny or they might start a Harry Potter Fanclub.” Harry glared at them. “Stop it guys, that was the most uncomfortable moment of my life!”

“It sure looked like it,” Daphne said, walking up to them with Theo in tow. Ron frowned. “And why are you two talking to us?” Pansy elbowed him as she smiled at Daphne. “Hey guys, quick question, did you two read all of Lockhart’s books?” Theo looked down at the book in his hand that so happened to be _Wandering with Werewolves._ “Um, some were interesting, but I have not read all of them.”

Ron sighed. “Good, I haven’t read any of them.” Daphne raised an eyebrow at them. “And I’m guessing you didn’t read any of them either Pans?” Pansy laughed awkwardly. “Well, not really, but it’s not like it matters right?” Daphne shrugged. “I guess it can’t be that much of an issue.”

As they all settled in their seats, Lockhart stood in the middle of the classroom looking at each of them weirdly. Their teacher smiled brightly. “I think you all know who I am. Gilderoy Lockhart. Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of _Witch Weekly’s_ Most Charming Smile Award. But I won’t talk about that, I didn’t get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!”

Lockhart smiled, waiting for them to laugh. Ron elbowed Pansy. “He’s trying too hard.” Pansy nodded. When it was clear that not many people would laugh Lockhart cleared his throat. “Well, I thought we should start with a small quiz, nothing too hard. It is simply to check that you’ve read my books.”

Pansy was internally panicking as Lockhart handed out the test papers, she was definitely not ready for this. Lockhart stood back when he was done distributing the papers. “You will have thirty minutes to complete as much as you can. Your time starts, now!”

Looking down at the test paper, Pansy nearly groaned when she read the three first questions on the paper:

_1\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?_

2\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?

3\. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?

Needless to say Pansy did not know the answer to any of the questions, she gave Ron an incredulous look after reading through all of the questions which the redhead returned.

When half an hour had passed Lockhart was quick to take their tests back, Pansy rejoiced in the fact that it was only a quiz and didn’t mean much to her actual grade in DADA.

Lockhart shook his head in disappointment. “Hardly any of you remembers that my favorite color is lilac, I say so in _Year with a Yeti_ . And a few of you need to reread _Wandering with Werewolves_ , I clearly said in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic people, though I wouldn’t say no to a large bottle of Firewhisky.”

Pansy saw Ron fake a gag when Lockhart winked at them and nearly snorted. Seamus was clearly trying to contain his laughter as Dean shook his head. Pansy leaned back in her seat as Lockhart moved on to praising Hermione for getting full marks on the quiz because of course, she would know all of the answers.

“Now, be warned. It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourself facing your worst fears in this room! However, know that no harm can befall you as long as I am here-” Pansy tuned out Lockhart’s speech, instead focusing her attention on the cage on the desk. “He’s laying it on a bit too thick ain’t he?” Pansy muttered, Ron snickered silently at her comment.

“I must ask you not to scream,” Lockhart stated in a low voice, holding the sheet covering the cage on his desk. Pansy could feel half the class leaning forward, as Lockhart pulled off the sheet. “Behold freshly caught pixies!”

Pansy couldn’t hold in her laugh. Lockhart trained his eyes on her. “Yes, Mr. Parkinson?” Ron frowned at the man, about to retort and defend Pansy. The girl stopped him, staring at Lockhart tiredly. “Sorry Professor, but pixies aren’t that dangerous. And it’s Miss Parkinson.”

Lockhart paused, looking, Pansy over before letting the issue go. “Pixies may not seem dangerous Miss Parkinson, but they can be extremely tricky to subdue in numbers.” Pansy shrugged, that was fair. “Now, let’s see what you make of them.”

Nevermind.

Lockhart opened the cage, letting all of the pixies free and that’s when the chaos began.

The whole room was a mess. Pixies were flying everywhere, throwing books at them, pulling at their clothes, and biting any exposed flesh. Most of the students hid under desks to avoid the pixies.

“Come now, round them up! They’re only pixies!” Lockhart cries, trying to urge the students to fight back. “Only pixies, yeah right,” Harry grumbled, smacking a pixie away from Hermione. Pansy grimaced as a pixie bit her finger. “Granger, do you have a spell that could maybe help us?”

Just as she asked that Lockhart stood and began waving his wand. “Peskipiksi Pesteronomi!” It had no effect and one of the pixies grabbed his wand out of his hands, flying away with it. Ron looked on in disbelief as Lockhart ran back into his office, shutting the door behind him. “Now what the bloody hell do we do!?”

Needless to say, none of them did anything to fight the pixies. As soon as the bell rang everyone scrambled out of the classroom, leaving the pixies to their new home.

“Can you believe him? He left a bunch of second years alone against a hoard of pixies!” Ron exclaimed angrily as they walked towards the Great Hall. Harry nodded. “What was that supposed to teach us anyway?” Hermione cut in. “He just wants to give us a more hands-on approach-”

“Hands-on? ‘Mione with all due respect that man has no clue what the bloody hell he’s doing!” Pansy yelled in annoyance, rubbing her bruised shoulder that had unfortunately been on the receiving end of some very sharp teeth.

“Rubbish.” Hermione shook her head. “You’ve read his books-”

“I actually haven’t…”

“-He’s done extraordinary things.” Hermione finished, glaring at Pansy and Ron as the two shrugged. “So he says,” Harry muttered. “There’s no factually proof.”

“But the books-” Hermione began. “No, just because a book says something doesn’t mean that it is true!” Pansy sighed. Hermione looked down. “Well, until you can prove that he didn’t do those things I suppose we will have to take his word for it.” And she walked away from them.

“Did I say something wrong?” Pansy asked in confusion. Harry shook his head. “If she doesn’t believe us there’s nothing we can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unlike the first part, I don't have this story pre-written so updates will most likely be once every week.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and leave a comment if you have any suggestions.


	2. The voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy really liked Quidditch, but when it came between her and her sleep she knew that nothing could possible make her day worse. But fate loved to prove her wrong apparently.

The next few weeks were considerably calmer and less disastrous than that first day. Pansy and Ron had a few good laughs at Harry since the boy was actively trying to avoid Lockhart. She would never let him forget the time he jumped under Snape’s desk to stay away from the DADA Professor.

Despite how bright her mood had been lately, Pansy did not appreciate being woken up early on a Saturday morning for, what she considered to be, a useless reason.

Angelina raised an eyebrow when Pansy threw her covers over herself. “Parkinson, if you don’t get up I will send Fred and George here and they won’t mind setting your bed on fire if you don’t get up,” Pansy grumbled tiredly, glaring at Angelina before deciding to end her suffering and go along with the girl.

“Why are you waking me up at this time?” Pansy groaned tiredly, pulling her robes on. Angelina shrugged. “It’s Wood’s new training program,” Pansy grumbled. “I’ll show him what I think of his new training program.” Angelina laughed. “Come on feisty, the sooner we finish the sooner we can go back to bed.”

Pansy was definitely not above laughing as she watched Harry stagger towards the Quidditch pitch tiredly. “Hello Pansy,” Harry mumbled. Pansy offered him a pat on the back. “You good Potter? You look dead on your feet.”

“Hey, Harry!” Colin Creevey exclaimed as he ran after Harry. The boy who lived sighed tiredly, sending Pansy a pleading look. Colin smiled up at Harry, a camera clutched in his hand. He held up a picture of Harry. “Can you sign this for me?”

“Hey Creevey, can’t you see that he’s tired? Go annoy someone else.” Pansy said, glaring at the boy. Colin frowned at her. “Um, I was speaking to Harr-” Pansy hissed. “Yes, and I’m talking to you. Now I want you to understand some things Creevey, one, Harry, and I were already woken at sunrise on a bloody Saturday morning for Quidditch practice so please understand that we are quite literally dead on our feet.”

Colin gulped fearfully as Pansy continued. “Two, have you thought that maybe Harry doesn’t want to be a celebrity and wants to instead focus on his schooling? No, but now you know so leave him alone will you?” Colin tried to seem intimidating as he looked at her. “I-I won’t let myself be pushed around by a Slyth-”

Harry stepped in forcefully. “Colin, stop it. Pansy is right. We have practice to get to. If you want you can come and watch but please keep the pictures to a minimum.” Colin regained his smile and nodded. “I’ve never seen a Quidditch game before-”

Pansy raised an eyebrow at Harry. “You’re too soft on him Potter.” Harry shrugged. “I’m just tired, usually I could deal with it.”

They all headed to the changing room to put their uniforms on. Pansy was pleased to see that everyone looked dead on their feet, well, except for Wood.

Wood smiled down at them. “What kept you two? I need to speak with the whole team about the new training program I devised this summer.” Pansy hung at the back of the group with Fred and George as Wood droned on. “Is he seriously going to make us wake up early every Saturday?” She whined, rubbing her eyes tiredly. George snorted. “I’m going on strike if he does that.” And honestly, Pansy agreed with that sentiment.

It took Wood a good hour to explain his new strategy and by the time he was finished most of the team had fallen asleep. “So, do you have any questions?” Fred raised his hand. “Yeah Oliver, why couldn’t you tell us this yesterday? When we were all awake?” Fred nearly shrieked when Wood threw his wand at him

“Listen here you lot!” Wood bellowed, startling Pansy awake. “We should have won the Quidditch Cup last year, we clearly have the best team but due to unforeseen events, we lost. So this year we will train hard and we will win!” Wood exhaled, calming himself. “Now, let’s go and test my strategy.”

Pansy begrudgingly stood up, grasping her broom and following the rest of the team out on the pitch. She waved at Hermione and Ron as she walked towards the stands.

Ron frowned. “Are you done yet?” Harry walked up behind Pansy and whined. “We haven’t even started yet.”

“Gimme that,” Pansy muttered as she grabbed a slice of french toast from Ron’s hands. “Hey!” The redhead exclaimed angrily. Pansy glared at him. “I haven’t eaten anything Weasley, let me have this!”

Hermione glanced at the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team with a raised eyebrow. “You all look dead on your feet.” Pansy snickered. “That’s because we are ‘Mione. We just had to sit for an hour listening to Wood explains our new training regiment for the year.”

“That is rather unfair,” Hermione muttered. Pansy wrapped the girl in a one-armed hug and nodded at Harry. “She really is the smart one.”

Harry laughed. “I think we’ve been aware of that for a while Pansy. Besides, without her, we would have never gotten through our exams last year.” Hermione chuckled slightly, leaning her head against Pansy’s chest. “Yes well, you three did work hard last year.” Ron cheered. “Hermione just admitted that we are smart! My life is complete!” Pansy laughed. “Ah yes, a compliment from Granger about our intellect is the best compliment.” Hermione blushed before jokingly pushing Pansy away. “Maybe next time I’ll just let you fail since you three don’t seem to appreciate me.”

“Aww, you know you don’t mean that darling.” Pansy drawled. “Besides, we appreciate you plenty.” Ron nodded. “Yeah.” Hermione smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Pansy. I think you should get going though. Wood seems to be more irritable than usual.”

Pansy quickly finished her piece of toast before straddling her new broom and kicking off the ground. She flew over to Fred and Harry who were awkwardly hovering over the pitch.

“What’s wrong?” Fred gestured unhelpfully. “The clicking sound.” Pansy raised an eyebrow at him and Harry clarified. “Colin brought his camera and is sitting in the stands.” Pansy glanced at the stands and did indeed spot the small first year. “Do you want me to stop him?” Harry chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll do much good but thanks for the offer.”

Wood flew up to them. “What is the first year doing here with the camera? He could be a Slytherin spy.” Harry shrugged. “He’s in Gryffindor.” Fred nodded. “Yeah, and the Slytherin don’t need a spy.”

“Why is that?” Wood asked. Fred snickered. “Well, for one Parkinson is here-” Pansy slapped his arm in annoyance. “And also because they’re here.” Pansy nearly snorted when Wood immediately turned towards the group of Slytherin that was walking onto the pitch. He almost resembled a bloodhound.

“Flint! This is our practice time, we booked the pitch.” Wood stated as he stood in front of Flint. Flint smirked. “There’s plenty of space for two Wood.”

“But I booked it!” The rest of the Gryffindor team landed behind Wood. Flint sneered, holding out a piece of parchment. “Yes but I’ve got a signed note from Professor Snape to train our new seeker.”

Wood frowned. “New seeker?” Pansy could feel Harry freeze as he saw Draco walk out from behind the rest of the Slytherin team. George frowned. “Aren’t you Lucius Malfoys son?”

Flint hummed. “Funny you should mention Draco’s father. Let me show you the generous gifts that his father offered the whole Slytherin team.” Each of them held out their brooms. Angelina gasped. “The Nimbus 2001!”

Wood shrugged, putting on a strong face. “So? Our chaser has a Nimbus 2001 as well.” Flint chuckled. “Yes, but your beaters also have old Cleansweep fives. Though I suppose you could get a good bundle of money if you sell those at an antique store.”

Ron and Hermione ran onto the pitch, causing Flint to raise an eyebrow in amusement. “Oh, a pitch invasion?”

Ron glared at Draco. “Why aren’t you playing, and what is he doing here?” Draco smirked. “I’m the new Slytherin seeker Weasley. We were just admiring the new brooms that my father gifted the Slytherin team. I’m sure they could easily outrun the old Cleansweeps that your brothers are forced to fly on.”

Hermione retorted sharply. “Well, at least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in. They got in on pure talent.” Pansy nearly snorted when she saw the look on Draco’s face at that comment.

But of course, he had to take it one step further.

“No one asked you your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood.” Draco spat, glaring at Hermione.

Hermione backed away as if she had been slapped and the Weasley’s stepped forward, ready to attack Draco for his comment. Angelina held them back, though she sent Draco a seething glare. Pansy met Draco’s gaze, glaring at him angrily. “How dare you!” Katie exclaimed.

“You’ll regret that Malfoy! Eat slugs!” Ron yelled, jabbing his wand at Draco. He was instead thrown up into the air as the spell missed and seemed to turn against him.

Hermione and Harry rushed towards him, helping the redhead sit up. “Ron, Ron are you okay?” Ron opened his mouth to respond but instead, a large slug fell from his mouth.

Pansy stared wide-eyed as more slugs poured out of Ron’s mouth. She was vaguely aware of the laughter coming from the Slytherin team as she walked over to the trio. “Get him up, we’re taking him to Hagrid’s.”

Pansy grabbed one of Ron’s arms, placing it behind her neck while Harry took his other arm. They were about to walk off the pitch when Colin ran towards them. “What happened Harry? Is he ill? You can cure him right?” Ron opened his mouth again only for more slugs to fall out, Colin’s eyes brightened. “Ooh, Can you hold him still for a minute?” Harry groaned. “Get out of the way Colin.” He muttered angrily as he and Pansy dragged Ron towards Hagrid’s hut.

“Better get everything out now, right Weasley?” Pansy joked. Ron glared at her as he heaved again.

They were barely five meters away from the hut when they saw Lockhart exiting the hut with Hagrid. “Quick, hide.” Harry hissed under his breath, pulling the other three behind the hut.

“It’s a simple matter if you know what you’re doing. If you need help you know where I am! I’ll even let you have a copy of my book, though I’m surprised you don’t already have one. Regardless, I’ll sign a copy and send it over, Goodbye!” Lockhart said before walking towards the castle.

Hagrid looked relieved to be rid of the man and Pansy could understand that sentiment. When they walked out from behind the hut Hagrid offered them a friendly smile. “I’d been wondering when yeh would pay me a visit.” Pansy smiled jokingly. “Yes well, we need help with Weasley over here since he’s giving a new meaning to having a frog in your throat, though I suppose the phrase would be having a slug in your throat.”

“Shut up Parkinson,” Ron whined, having enough time to speak before another slug fell from his mouth. Hagrid’s eyes widened. “Oh, I see, well come in then.”

When they were all seated in the hut, Ron with a bucket for the slugs, Hagrid handed them a mug of tea, though the look of vague disgust on Ron’s face caused Hagrid to take the one meant for the redhead.

“Just get ‘em all out Ron, better out than in, I always say.” Hagrid gruffed out. Pansy occupied herself with petting Fang as the dog sat next to her chair, knowing that she was most likely to baby him out of the others in the hut.

Hermione quipped. “What was Professor Lockhart talking about Hagrid?” Hagrid grumbled. “He was tellin’ me of the best way to draw kelpies out of wells as if I didn’t already know. He also went rattling off about some banshee that he banished, if one word of it was true I’ll eat my own kettle.”

“I think you’re being a little unfair, if Dumbledore chose him he must have been the best man for the job-” Hermione started but she was interrupted by Hagrid’s snort. “He was the only man for the job, it’s getting hard to find people for the Defence against the Dark Arts post, it frightens people off.” Pansy scoffed. “Can’t really blame them.” Hagrid nodded. “Now, who was Ron trying to curse?”

Harry looked up at Hagrid sheepishly. “Malfoy called Hermione something, it must have been bad since even Pansy was really angry at him.”

“Of course! I might be his friend but he went over the line!” Pansy exclaimed, frightening Fang who wasn’t used to her outbursts. Hagrid frowned. “What did he say?” Pansy grimaced, trying to coax Fang back. “He called her a Mudblood-”

“He did what?!” Hagrid bellowed angrily. Harry cut in. “Um, what does that mean?” Pansy gave up on getting Fang back, instead, she turned towards Harry. “It’s an insult that is used on muggle-borns. Since they have non-magic parents they are seen as an unclean lineage to some.”

“Like the Malfoys and other pure-blood families,” Ron spoke up before diving back into the bucket. Pansy inhaled slowly. “Weasley is only half right, not all pure-blood families have that view, my father and the Greengrass are a prime example of that. Besides, blood can’t mean much. Granger has mastered nearly every spell in the textbook while Longbottom can’t even set up his cauldron properly!” Pansy finished, gesturing towards a now blushing Hermione.

Hagrid nodded. “Pansy is right, Hermione is one of the brightest witches to ever attend this school. I can’t really blame you for tryin’ to curse Malfoy.”

Harry hummed. “Well, those who matter don’t care that Hermione is a muggle-born.”

Hermione smiled in appreciation. “Thank you, I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.” Pansy grinned. “Don’t worry, whenever you need a pep talk you can come to us anytime darling.” The bookworm giggled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

***-***-***

It took Ron a whole two hours to stop belching out slugs, which essentially meant that Pansy’s entertainment for the day didn’t last long.

When Ron started to feel better, Hermione immediately dragged the trio to the library during their break to do some more unnecessary studying. Hermione was the only one doing any actual studying since Pansy and Ron had found an isolated corner of the library to play chess.

Pansy stared down at the chessboard thoughtfully, Ron had definitely gotten better at chess since the previous year but Pansy refused to lose to him.

“Parkinson?” Ron asked.

“What is it, Weasley?” Pansy mumbled, moving her pawn forward. Ron sighed. “You’ve seen Ginny right?” Pansy paused in thought, trying to remember who she knew that had that name. “Your sister yeah?” Ron nodded. “Do you think there’s anything...strange about her lately?”

“Uh, I don’t know her well so I can’t really give an actual diagnosis Ron,” Pansy said with uncertainty. Ron hummed. “Well, she’s been strange since the beginning of term. It seems like she’s hiding something.” Pansy shrugged. “She’s young, and girls keep secrets all the time even if they have six brothers.”

“I don’t know, it feels like something is happening in the school,” Ron mumbled. Pansy shrugged. “Look, Ron, last year was exciting enough so I doubt anything else will happen this year.” Ron sighed. “I hope you're right, I really don’t want to deal with another bloody quest.” Pansy chuckled, gesturing towards the board. “Yes well, it’s your turn.”

Ron glanced at her pointedly. “I will beat you this time.” Pansy shrugged. “You can try Weasley.”

***-***-***

Pansy was desolated to hear that both Harry and Ron had detention after dinner, meaning that she was now stuck in the Gryffindor Common room with no entertainment since everyone seemed to have gone to sleep early on the one day where she actually needed company.

She debated sneaking into the Slytherin Common room but she really didn’t want another mark on her record after last year.

Pansy stared at the fireplace as the flames crackled on the wood. She would usually take this chance to catch up on her homework but she didn’t feel any motivation to do anything at all. She managed to just sit and stare at the fire for a solid hour before boredom started to set in.

How long were the other two supposed to be in detention anyways?

Pansy had almost convinced herself to go and sneak into the Slytherin Common room when she heard it.

A voice...

**_“Come...come to me...let me rip you...let me tear you...let me...kill you…”_ **

Pansy froze, pressing her ear to the wall as she listened to the hissing voice.

**_“Tear...I want to tear your skin off…”_ **

And that probably meant that she needed about a month of sleep and tea if she was starting to hear the equivalent of a serial killer’s voice in her head.

Pansy ran back up into the girl’s dorm, forcing herself to sleep and forget what she had heard, though a faint whisper could still be heard even after she fell asleep.

**_“Come here...and let me...Kill you...”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter because yes
> 
> If you have any suggestions or just want to say something, feel free to leave a comment!


	3. The first attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy decides to ignore her problems, but that ends up making things worse.

October was an interesting month.

With the whole troll debacle last year, Pansy half expected a werewolf to come running down the halls at some point.

She had been going through her days on autopilot for the past week since Wood decided to boost their Quidditch practice time and the people around her were clearly starting to notice.

Pansy had tried to forget about the voice she had heard and instead focus on her studies, which Hermione was definitely happy about. However, her sudden interest in school work had caused Harry and Ron to worry about her.

The two knew that despite Pansy caring about her studies, she would never lose herself in her work and that was odd to them. They managed to hang out with her during classes and meals but after that, Pansy seemed to simply disappear and reappear hours later.

When Harry and Ron first mentioned it to Hermione the bookworm had frowned before stating that Pansy was probably just spending more time with the Slytherin. But when this same pattern happened over and over again for over two weeks Hermione began to question things. Sure Pansy would sometimes leave the Gryffindor Common room to get some air but that usually meant that she was with the Slytherin.

Hermione had dragged Ron along with her, begrudgingly, to ask Daphne why Pansy was spending so much time away from the Gryffindors but the answer they got was definitely worse than what they had originally thought.

Daphne had fixed the Gryffindors with a confused stare and responded nervously. “Um, she hasn’t really hung out with the Slytherin in a while. I assumed it was because she was with you guys.”

“Are you sure?” Hermione pressed. “She has been more distant lately and I cannot figure out why.”

Daphne could see that Hermione was clearly panicking so she tried to calm her down. “If you want I can tell her that she’s been distant when I see her?” Ron nodded thankfully. “Yeah, I think she’d be more open to you probing her about her whereabouts than us.” Daphne chuckled. “Probably. Thanks for telling me though.”

Hermione smiled thankfully. “Thank you, Daphne.” Ron hummed. “You’re not so bad, for a Slytherin.” Daphne grinned. “Such high praise from a Gryffindor, maybe I am going soft.” Ron laughed. “Yeah well, thanks for the help, Greengrass.”

Daphne waved the two Gryffindors off as they left. She stood in the hall for a few moments, silently contemplating her options. She could either go tell the others about Pansy and hunt her down or wait for her to show up and confront her then.

The universe seemed to make her choice for her as she saw Pansy walking out of a classroom.

“Pansy! Wait a minute!” Daphne yelled, waving the Gryffindor down.

Pansy paused and turned her tired eyes towards Daphne. She allowed a small smile to cross her face. “Hey Daph, what’s wrong?”

Daphne held Pansy’s hand and began walking her towards the Slytherin Common room.

“Um, not to be rude but what is this about?” Pansy muttered as they walked through the dungeons. Daphne remained silent, sitting Pansy down on the couch in the Slytherin Common room. Daphne cleared her throat and the small amount of Slytherin students who were in the Common room left, giving them some privacy.

Pansy raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong Daph? Did I do something?” Daphne sighed. “I’m going to be honest with you okay Pansy? Ron and Hermione asked me to talk to you.” Pansy laughed. “Weasley and Hermione really came to you?”

“This is serious Pansy, they’re worried and so is Potter. Apparently you’re being really distant with them.” Daphne stated. Pansy sighed heavily. “Look Daph, I’ve been dealing with some stuff. It’s no one’s fault but-”

“Explain.” Daphne retorted sharply.

Pansy snickered. “You wouldn’t understand-”

“Try me.”

Pansy exhaled sharply. “Fine, I’ve been hearing voices.” Daphne frowned. “What do you mean?” Pansy glared at the ground. “It means I’ve been hearing voices when no one is around.”

“So, that’s what’s bothering you?” Daphne asked cautiously. “Daph you don’t get it, the voices say strange things.” Pansy tried to explain. Daphne nodded in understanding. “Can you tell me what they say?”

“It’s always that same phrase. It wants to kill, tear, and rip something, probably a human but I don’t know where the voices are coming from.” Pansy muttered. “Can you describe it?” Daphne asked, trying to get a clear understanding of the topic. “It’s...Hard to explain...I’d say it’s like a hiss, almost like a snake…” Pansy pondered, reminding herself what the voice sounded like. Daphne paused, processing the information.

“So...How often do you hear these voices?” Pansy shrugged. “Not often, I heard it at night one time then I remember hearing it near Lockhart’s classroom earlier this week.” Daphne hummed thoughtfully, tapping her fingers against the armrest.

Pansy looked up at her worriedly. “Do you think I’m going bonkers Daph?” Daphne chuckled a little. “No, I think you should tell your Gryffindor friends about this, for all you know they might have heard it too.”

“Hmm, maybe you’re right,” Pansy muttered. Daphne patted her on the back. “Now, are you going to talk to them?” Pansy stood, nodding to herself. “Yeah, I’m ready.” Daphne chuckled. “Great, now I can get back to my work.” Pansy frowned. “Did Weasley interrupt you?” Daphne shrugged, reaching for her books. “Not really, I was walking back here to work before they caught up to me.”

“Right, I bid you farewell fair maiden,” Pansy said, exaggerating a bow towards the Slytherin. Daphne laughed, sending Pansy a salute. “Of course, see you later Pansy.” Pansy waved at Daphne before exiting the dungeons and heading towards the Gryffindor Common room.

When she entered, the Common room was almost empty except for Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

How convenient.

Pansy cleared her throat awkwardly. When the three Gryffindors turned towards her she spoke. “Uh, I have some things to tell you.”

“Did Daphne speak with you?” Hermione asked softly. Pansy nodded. “Yeah...I’m willing to give you an explanation as long as you let me finish.” Harry nodded, gesturing to a spot on the couch for Pansy to sit. She settled onto the couch, awkwardly fidgeting with her hands.

“So, first I’m sorry about shutting you out lately.” Ron snorted. “That’s an understatement.” Hermione elbowed him, focusing her attention on Pansy. “Please continue Pansy.” Pansy nodded. “Um, there’s been something I’ve been worrying about for a while. There’s this voice I heard a few times and it scares me.” Harry frowned. “What voice? What was it saying?” The girl paused, thinking of a way to word her answer.

“Well, it sounded like a hiss and it was raving on about killing someone and tearing them apart.” Pansy could see the panicked look on Hermione’s face as the bookworm processed Pansy’s words. Harry placed a hand on Pansy’s knee soothingly. “I heard it too, on the night Ron and I had detention.”

The focus immediately switched to Harry. “You heard it too? Why didn’t you say anything?” Harry raised an eyebrow at Pansy. “Well, why didn’t you say anything?” Pansy chuckled. “Fair enough, but you’re serious right?”

Ron halted their conversation. “Wait, back up a second you two have both been hearing a voice telling you that it wants to kill people and you didn’t say anything for more than a month?” Pansy and Harry nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it Ron.” Hermione pondered worriedly. “Should we say this to Dumbledore?” Pansy shook her head. “I wouldn’t. Nothing has happened so I’m just going to say that Harry and I are slowly losing our minds and call it a day.”

“This is serious Pansy!” Hermione yelled. “You don’t think I know that?!” Pansy retorted. “Listen, this might be worrying but it hasn’t turned into something big so I say we deal with it until it becomes a real problem, then we can go to Dumbledore. Okay?”

Harry paused. “I thought after last year everything would be alright-”

“Hold on, nothing here says that this is the doing of You-know-who so let’s not jump to conclusions yeah?” Ron cut in. Pansy nodded. “We have more important things to worry about okay? Let’s just push this discussion back to when something actually happens.”

Hermione begrudgingly agreed and they all headed towards their last class of the day.

Thankfully they all had Transfiguration last, McGonagall could clearly read the mood of the classroom and only assigned them to work on an essay rather than make them actively practice transfiguration on something.

The class finished up rather quickly and Pansy was happy when they were let out to do their own thing.

That excitement was quickly forgotten when she heard something she thought she would not hear again.

**_“Rip...tear...kill…”_ **

Pansy glanced at Harry and the boy met her gaze, eyes staring at her fearfully. Ron and Hermione paused, turning towards the two who had stopped walking. “What’s wrong guys?”

“We can hear it again,” Harry mumbled. Hermione looked around. “There’s no one here…” Ron grabbed Harry’s shoulders. “Listen to the voice okay and follow it, it might lead us to whatever is talking.”

Pansy snorted. “That’s actually pretty smart Ron.”

**_“So hungry...for so long...kill...time to kill..”_ **

Pansy pressed her ear against the wall before pointing to the left hallway. “Come on, it’s going down that way.” Harry nodded, running his hand over the wall as he followed the sound of the voice. “Guys, where are we going?” Hermione whispered as she and Ron ran after the other two. Pansy shushed her. “Shh! We need to be able to hear.” Harry and Pansy stopped, waiting for the voice to start speaking again. Ron looked between the two, straining his ear, hoping he would hear something too.

**_“...I smell blood...I SMELL BLOOD…”_ **

Pansy hissed under her breath as she heard the voice louder. Harry guided them down the hallway, taking a right, and stopping. The hallway they had run into seemed to be flooded. A thin layer of water coated the floor and it seemed to be coming from a bathroom.

“Guys, what is it now?” Ron asked. Hermione glanced at Pansy, seeing that the girl was standing, frozen in shock, staring at something down the hall. “Pansy? What is it?”

“Look,” Pansy said, voice trembling unnaturally as she pointed towards the wall. Ron looked in the direction that Pansy was pointing at and gasped.

“Is that-”

“Bloody hell!”

On the wall, written in red, were the words: THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAD BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.

Upon closer examination, Pansy was now sure that the words were written in blood. And the thing hanging from the lamp above was Mrs. Norris.

Pansy was too afraid to check if the cat was dead.

“Should we try to get her down?” Harry asked, voice quivering as he stared at Mrs. Norris. Ron hissed. “Are you crazy? Then we’ de look like the culprits.”

“Culprit? That’s a complicated word for you, Weasley.” Pansy mumbled. Ron began backing away. “We shouldn’t be here, if someone catches us here we’ll be in trouble.”

“Indeed.”

The four Gryffindors yelped as someone spoke behind them. They each turned around and were met with Snape’s emotionless face. “Now, what were you four doing here in such a precarious position?” The Potion professor stared down at the four students, an amused glint in his eyes.

Before they could answer, voices began filling the hallway as students crowded around the wall. Draco stood out of the bunch, sending Pansy a curious glance before speaking. “Enemies of the heir beware? You’ll be next Mudbloods!”

Pansy almost punched him but Filch seemed to have other plans.

The squib took one look at the cat hanging from the wall and turned his hateful gaze towards them. “You! You murdered my cat! I’ll kill you for this!” Pansy shrieked when Filch managed to grab her shirt collar.

Hermione tried to intervene, yelling for Filch to let go of Pansy but the Squib seemed ready to punch her and Pansy was honestly afraid that he would follow through.

“Argus!”

Thank Salazar for Dumbledore’s timing.

Dumbledore managed to get Filch to let go of her and directed the students away with a few well-placed words. Dumbledore gestured for the four Gryffindors to follow him to his office. Pansy sent Ron a confused look when she saw the excited smile on Lockhart’s face.

The Gryffindors stood in a corner of Dumbledore’s office as the man placed Mrs. Norris’s body on the polished surface of his desk. Dumbledore looked the cat over, clearly trying to find out what happened. Ron and Harry were standing at Pansy’s sides, occasionally glancing at Filch who still seemed ready to attack Pansy at any moment. Hermione reached out and held Pansy’s hand, trying to non-verbally offer the girl comfort.

Pansy would never admit that she was calmed by those actions.

Lockhart shook his head apologetically. “It was definitely a curse that killed her, probably the Transmogrifian torture, I’ve seen it used many times before. So unlucky that I wasn’t there, I know the very counter-curse that would have saved her-”

Pansy stood uncomfortably as she heard Lockhart speak over Filch’s sobs, did the man not know when he should keep his mouth shut?

“...I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadougou.”Lockhart continued, not reading the mood of the room. “A series of attacks, the full story is in my autobiography. I was able to provide the townspeople with amulets that cleared the matter up at once-”

Dumbledore, mercifully, cut in. “She’s not dead Argus, she has been petrified,” Dumbledore stated softly. Lockhart nodded, muttering agreements to himself. Dumbledore continued. “But how I cannot say…”

“Ask him!” Filch shrieked, pointing at Pansy. Pansy squeezed Hermione’s hand in fear. An accusation like that could definitely get her expelled. Hermione sent her a comforting glance and intertwined their fingers.

Dumbledore shook his head. “I do not believe a second-year such as Miss Parkinson would have been able to do this. This is Dark magic, very advanced Dark magic at that-”

“He did it!” Filch spat, glaring at Pansy hatefully. “You saw what he wrote on the wall! He knows that I’m...That I’m a Squib!” Pansy cleared her throat shakily. “Mr. Filch, despite your...magical disability, I would never do such a thing to your cat, I’d rather stay as far as I possibly can from her-”

Snape stepped in. “Headmaster, it is possible that Miss Parkinson and her friends were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Pansy felt relief washing over her until Snape continued. “Though we do have some suspicious circumstances, for instance, why were they in this corridor instead of at the feast like everyone else?”

Harry glared at Snape. “We were talking and wanted to go back to our Common room to get certain things.” Snape raised an eyebrow. “Oh, like what?” Pansy cleared her throat before cutting in. “I had something that I wanted to gift to Miss Greengrass unless that is not permitted, Professor?”

Snape narrowed his eyes and turned towards Dumbledore. “I do not think they are being truthful, Headmaster may I suggest you deprive Miss Parkinson of certain privileges, perhaps you may take her off the Gryffindor team until she learns to be truthful.” Dumbledore sighed as McGonagall cut in angrily. “I hardly think that is fair Severus, the cat was not hit over the head with a broomstick after all. And there is no proof that any of them did this”

Dumbledore nodded. “Innocent until proven guilty Severus.”

Filch shrieked. “My cat was petrified! I want to see some kind of punishment!” Dumbledore nodded. “We will cure Mrs. Norris Argus. I believe professor Sprout is growing some Mandrakes and when they reach their adult size we will be able to brew the potion that will cure your cat.”

“I’ll do it.” Lockhart pipped up, probably thinking that he was oh so very noble. “I could whip up a mandrake restoration drought in my sleep-”

“Excuse me.” Snape spat in an icy tone. “But I am the potion master here.”

After an extremely awkward pause, Dumbledore sent everyone off to bed and whatever it was Professors did at night.

Later, Pansy was lying awake in her bed contemplating the day’s events. She turned towards Hermione. “Should I have told them about the voices?” Hermione shook her head softly. “I don’t know Pansy, maybe? Right now I think we should stay out of this. We had enough excitement last year.”

Pansy hummed in acknowledgment, pulling her covers up to her nose and settling in for what she hoped would be a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to leave a comment!


	4. From bad to worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The four Gryffindors dig for information about the Chamber of Secrets but apparently all they needed to do was have Hermione antagonize a teacher during class.

During the next few days, all people seemed to be able to talk about was Mrs. Norris and the writing on the wall.

Not that Filch was letting anyone forget any time soon.

Filch had attempted numerous times to erase the writing on the wall but the words remained present on the wall.

Ron was almost constantly mumbling to himself about how strange his sister had been after the attack but according to Fred, Ginny was simply disturbed because she loved cats. Hermione had also been affected by the attack. She had begun to withdraw from the Gryffindor trio and spend most of her free time in the library, no doubt trying to find more information about the Chamber of Secrets.

Pansy was sitting in the library with Ron and Harry, trying to finish her essay paper for History of Magic when Hermione sat at their table.

“All the copies of _Hogwarts: A history_ have been taken out. And there’s a two-week waiting list!” Hermione complained loudly. Pansy glanced at the other two who simply shrugged. “Why do you want it anyway?” Pansy asked, partially glad for a distraction. Hermione sent her an incredulous look. “The same reason everyone else wants it. To find information on the Chamber of Secrets!”

Ron gestured towards Hermione desperately. “‘Mione, let me read your composition.” Hermione frowned. “No, you’ve had ten days to finish it!” Ron groaned. “Please, I only have two inches left-” Pansy quickly wrote the last few words of her essay before handing it to Ron. “Here, there’s no way Granger is going to let you copy off of her.”

“You are a blessing Pansy,” Ron mumbled, grabbing Pansy’s essay and nearly gluing his nose to the paper. “Why haven’t you finished? We have History of Magic in two minutes?” Hermione asked. Pansy laughed. “Now, don’t patronize him, darling. You know how easily Ron can get distracted.”

Hermione huffed as the bell rang, signaling the end of their break. “I am only trying to help.” Pansy shrugged. “If you wanted to help you would have let him read your paper.” Hermione was about to retort when Harry cut in. “Guys, we should go, Professor Binns will be angry if we’re late.”

Pansy hummed, looking back at Ron. “Are you done? We need to go.” Ron groaned. “Hopefully he’ll forget he assigned anything.”

Ron’s wish seemed to have been granted. They all entered Professor Binns’s classroom and all the ghost had done since the beginning of the lesson was read off notes in a monotone tone.

He had been talking for nearly half an hour when Hermione raised her hand. The ghost looked up tiredly. “Yes, miss?”

“Granger sir. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets?” Hermione stated louder than she should have.

Half the class had already been falling asleep and that question definitely woke everyone up. Professor Binns cleared his throat. “My subject is History of Magic. I deal with facts Miss Granger, not myths and legends.” He was about to continue on with his lesson when Hermione pressed on. “But sir, don’t legends always have a basis in facts?”

Pansy nudged Ron awake. They had never seen Hermione talk back to or interrupt a teacher before so this was definitely something that the redhead wouldn’t want to miss.

“Well.” Professor Binns said, forgetting about his lesson. “Yes, one could argue that. However, the legend of which you speak of is such a sensational, even ludicrous tale that-”

He looked around the classroom, seeing the attentive gaze of all of his students. “Very well. As you all know, Hogwarts was founded thousands of years ago by four great witches and wizards. Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from any muggles.”

Binns paused, surprised that he still had the student’s attention. “They worked together for a few years but then a rift began growing between Salazar and the others. He believed that magic should only be taught to magic families, and despised teaching muggle-born students magic since he deemed them untrustworthy.”

Pansy sank deeper into her chair, not quite pleased that the teacher was essentially giving people more reasons to hate the Slytherin house.

“You must understand, however, that at the time witches and wizards were persecuted and even killed by muggles for using magic, so Salazar’s fears were not born out of nothing.” Binns specified, most likely realizing what his previous statement meant. “Eventually, there was a fight between Salazar and Godric which ended with Salazar leaving the school.”

“Now this is when facts and legends begin to blend. Legends state that Salazar sealed a secret chamber in the school where a beast, that only he could control resided. It is said that when his heir returned to the school they would open the chamber and release the horror within that would purge the school of those deemed unworthy to study magic.”

When nothing but silence followed his explanation, Binns scoffed. “Of course this is all nonsense, the school has been searched multiple times and never has this supposed Chamber of Secrets been found.”

Seamus spoke up. “But, if the chamber can only be found by the heir no one else would be able to find it would they?”

Binns scoffed. “Nonsense, if a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven’t been able to-”

“But Professor,” Parvati stated. “You would have to use dark magic to open the chamber no?”

Binns snapped. “Just because someone does not use dark magic doesn’t mean they can’t. Regardless, this is a myth! There is not a shred of evidence that Salazar ever built anything secret in this school. Now, we will return to history, solid believable facts!”

Pansy sighed, that intermission had been fun while it lasted.

***-***-***

Ron grumbled as they left the classroom. “I didn’t know Salazar started all of the pureblood talks.” Pansy shrugged, looking through a potion book she had gotten from the library. “Muggles used to tie us to trees and burn us, I honestly can’t fault him for wanting to stay away from muggles.”

“Yeah,” Ron admitted. “I would probably be suspicious of muggles too if they had killed someone I knew.” Hermione nodded. “Yes, but it is likely that his sentiment wasn’t understood since some pure-blood families think he just didn’t like the dirtiness of muggle blood.”

“Do you really think there’s a Chamber of Secrets?” Ron asked curiously. Harry shrugged. “You saw what happened to Mrs. Norris, something is definitely hiding in this castle and it’s not human.”

They all stopped, realizing that they were standing in the hallway where the message about the chamber was written. Filch wasn’t here patrolling the halls so they were able to stop and stare for a little.

“This is so strange,” Pansy mumbled. “After last year you would think things would be normal again.”

Hermione gestured for them to follow her as she stood near one of the openings in the wall. She pointed towards a line of spiders who were frantically exiting the school. Pansy frowned. “Spiders don’t usually act like that right?” Harry shook his head. “Not as far as I know. What do you think Ron?”

The redhead stood a few feet away from them, glaring at the spiders. Harry asked. “What’s wrong?” Ron grimaced, uncomfortably. “I don’t like spiders. I don’t like the way they move.”

Pansy snorted. “Yeah okay. Wait, wasn’t there water on the ground?” Harry nodded. “Someone must have mopped it.” Hermione pointed towards a door. “I think it was coming from there.” Pansy shrugged, grabbing the knob but Ron protested. “That’s the girl’s toilet, I’m not going in there.” Hermione rolled her eyes at the redhead. “This is Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, no one ever comes in here.”

In the end, Myrtle wasn’t much help. Hermione had asked if she had seen anything but Myrtle had instead lamented about how Peeves had been insulting her during the time of the supposed attack.

After that disaster, Pansy had been heading to the Gryffindor Common room when she ran into Astoria.

“Hey darling, what are you doing here?” Pansy asked, gently holding the girl’s hand. Astoria sobbed. “I-I was studying with Ginny when a bunch of Gryffindors came and bothered us. Ginny tried to stop them but one of the boys pushed me-”

Pansy kept her surprise to herself, maybe she hadn’t given the Weasley girl enough credit.

She hugged Astoria tightly. “Okay, can you tell me where it hurts?” Astoria showed Pansy her arm which clearly had a bruise forming near the elbow. “Look, this is what we’re going to do darling. I’m going to take you to Madame Pomfrey and while she’s fixing you up I’ll go find Daphne, how’s that sound?” Pansy asked, already beginning to lead Astoria towards the Hospital Wing.

“Okay, thank you, Pansy,” Astoria said happily.

Pansy quickly brought Astoria to Madame Pomfrey and explained the situation. The woman narrowed her eyes before nodding. “Very well, I will inform Minerva of this incident.” Pomfrey sent Astoria a smile. “Now, can you show me your arm? I want to check that nothing is broken.”

While Astoria was being looked over by Pomfrey, Pansy took the time to go look for Daphne.

Luckily she found the girl close to the Hospital Wing, laughing happily with Millicent. “Hey Daph, your sister is in the Hospital Wing and wants to see you.” Daphne stood abruptly. “What? Why? Is she hurt? Who hurt her?” Pansy held her hands up. “Calm down. She can tell you when you see her, I only got the gist of it.”

Millicent followed after them as they walked back towards the Hospital Wing. Daphne immediately ran to her sister and began fussing over her, much to Madam Pomfrey’s annoyance.

“Are you okay? Who hurt you? I’ll skin them alive.” Pomfrey sighed tiredly. “Miss Greengrass, if you would please step aside and let me finish looking over your sister.”

Daphne backed away. “Sorry, I was worried.” Madame Pomfrey eventually finished and turned towards them. “It’s nothing serious but Miss Greengrass had a little tumble it seems. Nothing was broken so I think she is good to go.”

They thanked Madame Pomfrey before Daphne escorted Astoria to the Slytherin Common room.

Millicent frowned. “So you’re saying Gryffondors did this?” Pansy nodded. “That’s what Astoria said. She was with Ron’s sister when it happened.” Millicent’s frown deepened. “We need to protect the first years more then, with everything that’s happening the hate for Slytherin is growing.”

“I’m so sorry Millie, I didn’t realize.” Milicent shook her head. “It’s fine Pansy, I’ve heard the whispers. Apparently, people think Potter is the heir of Slytherin, some are even saying you are.”

Pansy snorted. “Yeah right, why would I be the heir of Slytherin? The heir should at least be in Slytherin.” Millicent nodded. “And they would probably be a Parselmouth.” Pansy nodded. “Exactly! The heir would be a Parselmou-”

She quieted, processing what she had said. Yes, the heir would probably be able to speak to snakes, like Salazar Slytherin.

And the voices she and Harry had been hearing were almost like a hiss, and no one else could hear it…

Oh, Merlin.

She was a Parselmouth.

***-***-***

Pansy had kept her findings to herself. People were already afraid of anything that even pointed towards Slytherin so saying that she could talk to snakes, which was one of the things Salazar was known for, was definitely not a good thing.

She was now in the changing room for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, getting ready for her first match of the year.

Pansy had written a letter to her father about her discovery beforehand, only trusting him with that kind of information. She hoped he would have an explanation for this when she returned home for the holidays upon her mother’s request.

Wood had been drilling new strategies into them since the beginning of the year so Pansy was sure they were going to win. Sure they didn’t all have the newest broom models but they had a strategy.

As soon as the match began, Pansy could hear Draco taunting Harry. As if they didn’t have a snitch to find.

One thing Pansy realized as the game progressed was how little support they were getting from their beaters. Pansy turned and yelled at the twins. “What are you two doing? Katie nearly got her head blown off by a bludger earlier!”

George grit his teeth, chasing after a bludger that seemed to be stuck on Harry’s tail. “Someone tampered with the bludger, Parkinson, it won’t leave Harry alone.”

“Tell them to stop the game then!” Pansy yelled. Wood shook his head and commanded from his place near the hoops. “Keep playing! Make sure Harry catches the snitch as quickly as possible so that we can end this!”

Harry heeded the command, circling the pitch to not only avoid the bludger but also search for the snitch. Fred grumbled. “Get the snitch or die trying, what kind of bloody strategy is that?” Pansy shrugged. “Potter said he can deal with it. I think Angelina, Katie, and I can deal with the other bludger. Just make sure Potter doesn’t die.”

The twins saluted before following after Harry. Pansy grumbled when she took a look at the score. Slytherin seemed to be in the lead with sixty points while Gryffindor only had twenty.

Pansy flew near Angelina as she passed the quaffle to her. A bludger zoomed towards her head but Pansy quickly spun upside down to avoid it.

She continued dodging the Slytherin beaters, who weren’t afraid of hitting her rather than the bludgers with their bat, as she flew towards the hoops on the Slytherin side of the pitch. Pansy managed to score once before cheers followed by gasps erupted from the crowd.

Pansy flew down onto the ground, running towards the area where Harry had fallen with the snitch clasped in his hand.

Sadly, Lockhart was already near him, attempting to take a look at Harry’s obviously broken arm.

“It’s a simple charm, Harry. I’ve used it countless times.” Lockhart was saying, Pansy doubted that statement was correct. The DADA professor pulled out his wand and pointed it at Harry’s arm. “No!” Harry exclaimed but it was too late. A faint light shone from Lockhart’s wand before extinguishing itself.

Lockhart went to pick up Harry’s arm but instead of holding itself upright, the arm flopped towards the ground from the elbow down. Pansy’s eyes widened a little, it almost looked like there were no bones in Harry’s arm. "What the bloody hell did you do?" Pansy hissed, staring at Harry's limp arm in disbelief. Lockhart cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes well, that can sometimes happen. Parkinson, why don’t you help Harry to the Hospital Wing to get that sorted.”

Pansy and Fred helped Harry stand and lead him to Madame Pomfrey. Fred laughed. “Well, at least we won right?” Pansy laughed. “Yeah, couldn’t have done it without you, Potter.” Harry offered a weak smile.

Madame Pomfrey was not happy at all.

She had begun ranting on the damage Lockhart had done when Hermione, Ron, and the rest of the Gryffindor team joined Harry in the Hospital Wing.

Ron was yelling that Lockhart was incompetent while Hermione stated that anyone could make mistakes. The rest of the Quidditch team could read the mood and simply offered Harry congratulations and thanks before leaving.

Pansy sighed. “Lockhart seriously got rid of all the bloody bones in your arm?” Harry nodded, flopping his arm around uselessly. “Seems about right.”

Madame Pomfrey walked up to Harry with a bottle labeled ‘Skele-gro’. She poured some of the liquid in a cup, muttering to herself. “You’re in for a rough night Potter, regrowing bones is a nasty affair.”

Harry drank the content of the cup and nearly gagged. Pomfrey shook her head. “It’s not pumpkin juice Potter, this is meant to regrow bones did you expect it to taste nice?” Pansy snickered when Pomfrey left them alone.

“At least we won, you should have seen Malfoy’s face,” Ron said. Hermione cut in. “What was up with the bludger? It wouldn’t leave Harry alone.” Pansy sneered, elbowing Ron. “Maybe it should be part of the Harry Potter Fanclub along with Colin and Ginny.” They both laughed much to Harry’s embarrassment and Hermione’s indignation.

Madame Pomfrey eventually drove the three out of the Hospital Wing to let Harry rest and regrow his bones.

The Gryffindor Common room was bright and loud thanks to their win. Pansy received a number of congratulations from her housemates for her performance though she didn’t think she did much during the match.

When everyone finally decided to settle in for the night Pansy was, unfortunately, unable to go to sleep.

She was contently staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to claim her when she heard it again.

The voice.

**_“I will kill...this time...Rip and kill...Come to me...and let me...Kill you…”_ **

Pansy, instead of doing the logical thing and warning someone, decided to simply roll over and force her eyes close.

The voice got farther and farther away until, eventually, there was only silence and Pansy was finally able to sleep.

***-***-***

The next morning, the first thing Pansy heard was that Colin Creevey had never returned to the Common room last night.

When she, Ron, and Hermione went to visit Harry they were surprised to see that another bed was occupied and that the curtains were pulled around the bed.

Harry waited until they were all seated in the library to tell them what he had heard at night. He also relayed what a house-elf, named Dobby, had told him about the Chamber of Secrets.

Ron frowned. “So he’s trying to save you by nearly killing you? How does that make sense?” Pansy pondered, wondering why the name sounded familiar. “Dobby, that’s the Malfoy’s house-elf. What would he be doing here?” She questioned.

“Apparently saving Harry’s life.” Ron snarked in annoyance. Harry nodded. “Something is going to happen, something bad and Dobby doesn’t want me to be here when it does.”

That was clear enough but that didn’t explain why he was quite literally trying to kill Harry.

The news of Colin’s disappearance eventually stopped and was instead replaced with quiet whispers that stated that he had been petrified like Mrs. Norris.

People had been trading objects that would supposedly ward off whatever was attacking people, one of these people was Neville.

When asked why he got an amulet, Neville simply stated that Filch had been a squib and that Neville was basically a squib.

Pansy didn’t usually believe in such stuff but with the reminder that Hermione was muggle-born and that Colin was too, she secretly bought a necklace and gave it to Hermione, saying that it was a present.

Sadly, there wasn’t much that Pansy could do since the winter holiday had come up quicker than expected and she was needed at home.

Harry and Ron promised to not put themselves in any imminent danger before she left. Though she didn’t know how genuine they were.

On the Hogwarts Express, Pansy spoke with Daphne and Astoria, who were also returning home for the holidays. They spoke about a lot of things but the highlight was probably when Pansy told Daphne that she could understand Parseltongue.

The blonde had stared at her silently before gasping and asking her to say something in Parseltongue. Pansy had refused, claiming that she didn’t know if she could even speak it.

When they arrived at King’s Cross station, Pansy waved goodbye to Daphne before following after her father, who was alone waiting for her.

Phillip apparated them in Parkinson Park, a stern look on his face.

Pansy followed her father, leaving her belongings outside for the house-elves to deal with. Phillip led her into his study and gestured for her to take a seat in one of the armchairs near his desk. He cleared his throat as he crossed his arms over his chest. Pansy fidgeted nervously as her father spoke.

“Now Pansy. I want you to tell me everything, starting with this voice you keep hearing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if you have any suggestions!
> 
> Also, I got a Tumblr (https://tallangrygay.tumblr.com) and I'm gonna be posting some art of this story there. My drawing skills are not spectacular so idk about the quality.


	5. A Parselmouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy spends winter break with her parents, it goes as well as she expected.

It took Pansy a good hour to explain everything that had happened to her father, and during this time Phillip had simply sat quietly and listened to her speak without interrupting.

When Pansy was done Phillip leaned back against his chair and sighed thoughtfully.

“What is it, father? Do you know where the voices are coming from?” Pansy asked eagerly. Phillip shook his head. “Sorry, Pansy but no. When I was in school a similar incident occurred, though the attacks eventually stopped-”

“Really? How did they stop?” Pansy wondered. Phillip sent her a sad look before saying. “A girl died, then the attacks just stopped.”

Pansy remained quiet, processing the new information.

Phillip sat up tiredly. “Regardless, I want you to go up to your room and rest. Don’t worry about dinner, your mother will be back late so you can just help yourself to some of the pudding that Blooky made. Tomorrow I would like to test some things out with you if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, father, goodnight.” Pansy hugged her father before exiting the office and climbing the stairs up to her room.

Her house-elf, Blooky, appeared before her and offered her a curt bow. “Hello, young Miss, would you like anything to eat? The Master has informed me that you will not be having dinner.” Pansy nodded. “Can you just bring a cup of tea up to my room? I don’t think I will be able to stomach anything else for the night.” Blooky nodded, bowing slightly. “Of course young Miss, Blooky will do so immediately.”

The house-elf apparated away, leaving Pansy alone in the hallway. She pushed the door to her room open and entered.

Pansy looked around the room, enjoying the familiar feeling she got from simply standing in her room. Hopefully, her mother wouldn’t speak to her until tomorrow and disrupt her good mood.

She threw herself onto her bed, cuddling up against the soft velvet sheets. Merlin had she missed this.

Her owl flew into her room from the open window and perched itself on the armchair at the far end of the room. Pansy sat up on her bed and held an arm out. The owl settled itself onto her arm and cooed lightly when Pansy began gently scratching its head.

“It’s just you and me now Caspian. Mother is away and father is working so what should we do?” Pansy asked the owl, who simply tilted its head before flying out the window.

Pansy grumbled under her breath, shutting the window and falling back onto her bed. There wasn’t anything for her to do anyways so she might as well sleep and worry about her problems later.

***-***-***

“Young Miss. You must wake up. The Mistress has requested your presence downstairs!” An insistent and squeaky voice pulled her out of her slumber.

Pansy reluctantly dragged herself out of bed as Blooky hovered around her bed worriedly.

“What is it Blooky? What does my mother want?” Pansy mumbled, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she looked through her closet for clean clothes to wear. “The Mistress said that she would like for you to get ready for lunch with the Greengrass family.” The house-elf said. Pansy sighed. “So she wants formal wear?”

Blooky nodded. “Okay, tell my mother that I’ll be right down.” Pansy didn’t have to turn around to know that the elf had disappeared. She grabbed a set of dark green dress robes from her closet and began to change into them.

When she finally descended from her room both her father and her mother were waiting for her near the door.

She and her father were dressed in similar robes while her mother had adorned a green sheath dress. Her mother looked up at her briefly as Pansy approached and nodded. “Come along Paul, we do not want to be late.” Pansy reached out to hold her father and her mother’s arm before they disapparated.

Usually, apparating would cause some people to feel nauseous or even leave a part of them behind but Pansy was used to it. The most that ever happened to her was a slight feeling of dizziness since she couldn’t apparate by herself yet.

As soon as they had safely apparated in the Greengrass mansion Pansy let go of her mother’s hand, not wanting to deal with another lecture on being overly affectionate.

The Greengrass’s were already seated at the table in the dining hall, waiting for them. Phillip smiled and waved as the older Greengrass’s stood to greet them.

“Mark, it’s nice to see you again my friend,” Phillip said, shaking Mark’s hand. “The pleasure is all mine Phillip, and I see you brought little Paul with you too. Daphne will certainly be pleased.”

Pansy remained silent as the adults talked. She was eventually shooed away by her mother. “Go outside and entertain Daphne and Astoria. Your father and I will call you when it is time to eat.”

After nodding and mumbling. “Yes, mother.” Pansy walked towards the garden at the back of the mansion.

Daphne and Astoria were sitting on the grass in the middle of the garden. Daphne seemed to be enchanting pieces of paper to turn into animals that would then fly around them as Astoria looked at them in awe.

“Hey Daph, what are you doing?” Pansy asked, sitting down next to Daphne. The blonde smiled widely when she saw Pansy and immediately wrapped the Gryffindor in a tight hug. “Pansy! I thought you would stay away for at least a week before socializing again.” Pansy snickered, waving her arm around. “You know me Daph. I was born to be a socialite.” Daphne snorted. “Yeah sure, whatever you say.”

“Hi, Pansy!” Astoria exclaimed happily as she bounced up and down in glee. Pansy chuckled and patted Astoria’s back. “It’s nice to see you again Astoria. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you much at Hogwarts.”

Astoria hugged Pansy. “It’s okay, you helped me when I was hurt.” Pansy turned towards Daphne. “Actually, what happened to the Gryffindors who hurt Astoria?” Daphne huffed. “They got a week of detention with Snape and ten points taken from Gryffindor,” Pansy smirked. “Nice. Maybe this year Slytherin will win the house cup?”

“You might have broken our record with the little stunt you pulled last year but we will get our revenge,” Daphne exclaimed, waving her arms around in an exaggerated gesture. Astoria nodded along. “Yeah!”

Pansy chuckled, “Actually, have you heard from Blaise?”Daphne shook her head. “Not really, he’s staying at Hogwarts with Draco for Christmas. Why?” Pansy paused awkwardly. “Well...His uncle was a Parselmouth so-” Daphne cut her off. “Are you trying to properly learn how to speak Parseltongue?” The Gryffindor fiddled with the grass. “Um...Yeah?”

Daphne hummed. “Well, when we go back you can talk to him if you want.”

Pansy shook her head. “No, my father probably wants to make sure I’m not bluffing so I’ll get my answer then.” Daphne frowned. “So what? He’s just going to spawn in a snake and see if you can communicate with it?”

“Yeah pretty much.” Pansy agreed.

“Children! We’re going to start super so please come inside!” A voice called from inside the mansion.

Pansy teasingly pushed Daphne back onto the ground as the blond was getting up. “Catch me if you can Greengrass!” Astoria ran after Pansy as they both fled from Daphne, who was already on her feet and chasing after them. Daphne managed to tackle Pansy to the ground before she reached the entrance of the mansion. Pansy threw an arm over her eyes and wailed in exaggeration. “Oh, woe is me! I have been caught, run Astoria, and live to fight another day!” Daphne snorted, helping Pansy back to her feet. “Tone it down a little Pans, I haven’t killed you. Yet”

Pansy laughed. “Oh, the mystery! I love it.” Daphne rolled her eyes and led Pansy into the dining hall where their parents were already seated.

Daphne sat near Astoria while Phillip gestured for Pansy to sit at his right side. She complied, offering a polite nod at the Greengrass’s.

After the house-elves brought the food and set it on the table Pansy’s mother spoke. “Thank you for inviting us, Mark, Lucy.” The two Greengrass’s nodded. “It was nothing Pamela, we are always happy to have your family in our home.” Mark nodded. “Besides, our daughters enjoy Paul’s company.” Pamela smiled. “Indeed.”

Pansy awkwardly glanced at her father. Phillip shrugged at her before cutting into the steak that had been served in front of him. Pansy glanced down at her own plate of food. Despite the food looking really good Pansy simply picked at her plate during the whole meal. She tuned out her mother’s conversation and instead focused on the ground. Pansy could see Daphne sneaking occasional glances at her, most likely to make sure that she was alright, throughout the meal.

Strangely, her parents didn’t seem to have planned a long stay since, as soon as they were all done eating, Pansy’s parents stood and thanked the Greengrass’s for the meal.

“The food was divine Lucy, truly.” Phillip praised, smiling at the woman. Pansy waited for her parents to finish talking while she said her goodbyes to Daphne and Astoria.

Daphne hugged her. “It was nice seeing you Pansy, hopefully, we’ll see each other again before school starts again.” Pansy nodded. “Yeah, hopefully.” She smiled down at Astoria. “Did you have fun darling?” Astoria jumped up and down giddily. “Yes! You’re the best Pansy, even better than Blaise! Don’t tell him I said that though.” Pansy chuckled, sending the girl a playful smile. “Of course, it can be our little secret right?”

Daphne rolled her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And that’s why you love me, Greengrass.” Pansy drawled.

“Paul, we’re leaving.” Pansy nearly groaned when she heard her mother calling her. Daphne offered a wane smile. “Good luck.” Pansy sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to need it. See you later Daph.”

“Bye, Pansy.”

***-***-***

That day was probably the most exciting day of the whole break.

Lucky for Pansy, her mother had decided to leave her alone for the duration of Christmas so that her father could help her with her issues.

“Listen, Pansy, I don’t want you to panic okay? This will not harm you.” Phillip said his wand at the ready.

Pansy and her father were facing each other in the garden behind Parkinson Park. Phillip had his wand out, pointed at the floor while Pansy was awkwardly standing around, her wand still in her pocket.

“Okay, father.”

Phillip nodded. He inhaled deeply before flicking his wand towards the area in front of Pansy. “Serpensortia!”

Pansy forced herself not to flinch when a snake shot out of her father’s wand.

The snake shook its head, as if it was dizzy, before looking up at Pansy. It slithered towards her and brought its head nearly up to her level.

“Stop, leave!” Pansy could briefly see her father shaking his head, realizing that she had said the words in English.

The snake tilted its head at her and hissed. **_“It is quite unfortunate that you cannot understand me. Parselmouths are so rare to come across nowadays.”_ **

Pansy closed her eyes and calmed her breathing. When she reopened them the snake was even closer than before. She hissed. “Stay where you are, I didn’t give you permission to approach.”

The snake actually halted and moved away from Pansy. **_“You, understand what I am saying?”_ ** Pansy nodded. “Yes, I am a Parselmouth apparently.” The snake hissed. **_“How interesting, and I suppose I am simply here for you to practice on?”_ **Pansy snorted. “Yes, unless you'd like to stay with me as a pet I believe my father will gladly send you away.” The snake almost looked offended. **_“I see, I would rather stick around for a little. If that isn’t a problem?”_ **

“Not at all.” Pansy hissed back. Phillip spoke up. “Can you understand it, Pansy? Does it understand you back?”

The snake hissed angrily. **_“Tell your sperm donor that if he calls me ‘it’ again I will bite his arm off.”_ **

Pansy snickered. “Well, father, the snake is rather angry that you called it an ‘it’” Phillip frowned. “Didn’t you just call it an ‘it’ too?”

“Details.” Pansy waved the question off. Phillip raised an eyebrow. “So what does Mr. Snake want me to call it?”

**_“Naga will suffice as a name. And I am female”_** The snake hissed. Pansy looked back at her father. “She wants to be called Naga.” Phillip nodded. “Very well, I suppose Naga can stay with us. Unless you would like to keep her as your familiar?”

Pansy looked down at Naga. **_“_ ** Would you like to stay with me as my familiar?” The snake hissed. **_“Of course, I haven’t been around a Parselmouth in so long, I would appreciate being with someone who can understand my kind.”_ **

“She agrees to be my familiar.” Phillip nodded. “That can be arranged, now I suppose we should go back inside before your mother yells at us.” Pansy held her arm out for Naga to slither up to her shoulders. “If you bite me I will not hesitate to make you disappear again.” Naga hissed. **_“Now then, I wouldn’t want to bring harm to my new master. I have some morals, even if I am a snake.”_ **

Pansy nodded. “Right sure, if you want to attack my mother I won’t have any objections.” The snake seemed to laugh but Naga didn’t respond. Seeming content with wrapping herself around Pansy’s shoulders.

***-***-***

By the time winter break was over Pansy was more than ready to return to school.

Her father had spent the rest of the break teaching her more spells and constantly making sure that she could communicate with Naga. Her mother, on the other hand, seemed to be avoiding her. She always seemed not really there when Pansy saw her and whenever she wasn’t in the house her father would say that she was at the Malfoy’s house. Pansy didn’t understand why her mother went to the Malfoy mansion alone. She was never close with Narcissa or Lucius and Draco wasn’t even home anyway.

Sadly her father had told her that she wouldn't be able to bring Naga to school with her this year.

Upon her return to Hogwarts, she immediately realized that something was up with the Gryffindor trio. Harry and Ron didn’t look guilty per se but the absence of one Hermione Granger definitely hinted at something.

The two Gryffindors eventually led Pansy towards the Hospital Wing where Pansy nearly choked at the sight of Hermione.

The girl had fur all over her face and she had cat ears and a tail.

Hermione hid under the covers when Pansy began laughing. “Aww, you have whiskers!” Pansy exclaimed. Hermione tried to burrow deeper into the covers but Pansy reached her arms out to grab her face. Pansy began caressing Hermione’s furry cheeks as Ron explained what they had done to put Hermione in such a state.

“Wait, wait, wait. So when I was away, you three decided, as second years, that you'd make a Polyjuice potion and change yourself into Slytherins so that you could ask Draco if he was the heir, even though I am literally friends with him?” Pansy asked incredulously.

Ron mumbled. “Yeah, we didn’t think it through.” Pansy snorted. “And instead of taking Millie’s hair, Hermione took her cat’s hair which turned her into a cat-human thing?” Harry nodded. “We’re sorry Pansy, we thought that Malfoy was more likely to talk if we were actually Slytherin,” Harry explained. Pansy sighed tiredly. “Look, just don’t do it alone again, or we might have much worse than a furry situation on our hands.”

Hermione grumbled under her breath. “We know Pansy, this situation taught us better.” Pansy snorted, poking at the ears atop Hermione’s head. “Yeah, it better have. Anyways, I can apparently talk to snakes-”

“Me too!” Harry exclaimed. Pansy grinned. “Great, now we can both have secret conversations without anyone listening in.” Ron rolled his eyes. “Of course that’s the first use you find for your new ability.”

“Are you jealous Weasley?” Pansy asked mockingly, scratching behind Hermione’s furry ears. The bookworm huffed. “I am not a cat Pan-”

A purr was heard throughout the room as all of its occupants froze.

Hermione pushed Pansy’s arm away and pulled the covers over her head as a grin began spreading on Pansy’s face.

“Salazar, did you just purr?” Pansy exclaimed. Ron laughed. “Oh, Merlin she really did purr.”

Hermione whined as the two Gryffindors laughed. Harry at least had the decency to contain his chuckle as he tried to calm the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have a question or a suggestion feel free to leave a comment!


	6. The diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Hermione is still healing from the potion incident the other three Gryffindors do some snooping and discover stuff.

The three Gryffindors made sure to visit Hermione at least twice a day while she was in the Hospital Wing.

The girl had insisted that they bring all of her homework and notes for each of her classes despite being on bed rest. “I don’t know Granger if I suddenly grew a tail I would take a break from work,” Pansy mumbled as she lazily threw her wand in the air.

Hermione sent Pansy a disapproving stare before going back to the parchment she had been writing on. “Don’t be silly Pansy, I need to keep up with my work.” Ron glanced up at Hermione as he flicked through his notes. “Well, you’ve already missed a potions test, and knowing Snape he probably won’t even let you take it.”

Pansy snorted. “He would do that.” Hermione huffed. “Regardless, do you have any other leads?” Harry sighed gloomily. “Nothing.” Ron nodded. “We were so sure that it was Malfoy-”

“I mean, rumor says that Harry is the heir,” Pansy said. Ron shook his head, humoring the comment. “Well, we have to rule that out since Harry was with us when Mrs. Norris was attacked and he was here when Colin was attacked.”

Pansy shrugged. “That doesn’t stop people from formulating their own opinion. Fletchley was ranting on about how Colin was attacked because he was always harassing Harry.”

Harry frowned. “I wouldn’t do that-”

“We know Potter, but the others don’t, and that’s where the problem is,” Pansy stated. Hermione looked at Pansy in confusion. “You don’t really think that people see Harry as a killer?” Pansy shrugged unhelpfully. “I don’t know. He is friends with you so I don’t really know why they think he would go after muggle-borns, but then again no one has technically been killed yet.” Ron raised an eyebrow at Pansy, pointing a finger at her. “I heard that some of the rumors say that you’re the heir.”

“Really? Don’t they have better things to do?” Pansy sighed in annoyance. The redhead snickered. “I mean, it can’t really be you either since you were with us during the attacks.”

Harry glanced at the note that was sticking out from under the pillow on Hermione’s bed. “What’s that?” Hermione dismissed the question and answered hastily. “Just a get well card-” Pansy side-eyed Ron, receiving a nod from the redhead before grabbing the note from under the pillow.

Hermione scrambled to grab the note from Pansy but the green-eyed Gryffindor quickly got up from her position on the chair and moved to stand behind Ron.

She dramatically cleared her throat before she began reading the content of the note. “To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of _Witch Weekly’s_ Most Charming Smile Award.”

Ron grimaced in disgust. “And you sleep with that under your pillow?” Pansy had to agree with his sentiment.

Sadly, Hermione wasn’t able to answer since Madam Pomfrey came around to give the bookworm her medicine.

The Gryffindor trio was eventually chased out of the Hospital Wing by Madam Pomfrey, the woman explained that it was too late and that they should be in their Common room sleeping.

“Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you’ve ever seen or what?” Ron grumbled in annoyance. Pansy snickered. “You wish you were like him.” Ron gasped in outrage but before he could respond Harry cut in. “Don’t you wish the same thing, Pansy?”

The two Gryffindors turned to stare at Harry in disbelief. “What?” The boy asked when Pansy and Ron had remained quiet for a minute.

Ron collapsed against the wall laughing while Pansy slapped her palms to her forehead, groaning. “You can’t say things like that Harry, you’ll give me whiplash!”

“Oh, sorry,” Harry said through a chuckle. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Ron snickered. “Well, now we can all whine about the fact that we will never be as smooth as Lockhart.” Pansy scowled. “I disagree, Weasley. I bet that in five years I will be able to get as many cards and love letters as Lockhart.”

Ron snorted. “I’ll hold you to that Parkinson-”

“Shhh, someone coming,” Harry whispered, pulling the other two Gryffindors behind a pillar. Pansy peeked around the wall and saw Filch walking in their general direction. “We need to find a place to hide quickly or we’ll all have detention.” Pansy hissed.

Harry motioned for the others to follow him through one of the doors near them. Ron held his breath as he pressed his ear to the door, waiting for Filch to walk past them. “I think he’s gone-”

“What are you three doing here?” A nasal voice asked sharply from behind them.

The three Gryffindors jumped in surprise at the voice. Myrtle fixed them with a suspicious glare as she hovered over them. “Come to throw something else at me?” Harry frowned. “Why would I throw something at you?” Myrtle huffed. “Don’t ask me. I was just sitting here minding my own business...And a book went right through my head.”

Pansy raised an eyebrow. “But, you’re a ghost?”

“Yeah, it can’t hurt you, right? It would just go right through you.” Ron said. Myrtle glared at him, flying towards him. She stopped right in front of him and began shrieking. “Yes, let’s all throw books at Myrtle because she can’t feel anything! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! And fifty points if you can get it through her head!” Myrtle accentuated her rant by punching her arm through Ron’s stomach and head, much to the redhead’s shock and embarrassment.

Harry spoke up. “Who threw the book at you then?” Myrtle sighed. “I don’t know, I was just sitting on the U-bend thinking about death, and it fell through the top of my head.” After that, Myrtle flew away from them, sobbing to herself.

Pansy frowned as she walked over to the sinks, kneeling down and inspecting the area. She paused when she spotted a thin, leather-bound book lying in a puddle on the tiled ground. Pansy reached for it and picked it up, turning the book over in her hand as she stood and walked back to Harry and Ron.

“It looks like a journal.” She mumbled, flicking through the pages inside. Ron frowned. “You don’t think it could be dangerous?” Harry chuckled. “Dangerous? It’s just a book, Ron.” Pansy hummed. “Well, Ron has a point. Curses can be attached to books but this one doesn’t seem to have any.” She paused when she found the first page of the book. The name T. M. Riddle was written in smudged ink on the bottom of the first page.

Ron leaned in, snapping his fingers. “I heard of that name before...I think he got an award for doing special services to the school years ago.” Pansy snorted. “So a goody two shoe basically? He didn’t even write anything interesting in here.” She lamented sadly, staring at the blank, empty pages.

Harry gently took the diary from Pansy’s hands, turning it over. “I think he was a muggle-born or a half-blood, it says that it was bought from Vauxhall Road in London.” Ron hummed. “Well, it clearly wasn’t much use to him since he never wrote in it. Maybe it was a gift?”

Pansy took the diary back from Harry, eyeing it with a bored look. “If it was a gift I guess he didn’t appreciate it.” Ron snickered, whispering to them. “Fifty points of you can get it through Myrtle’s nose.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don’t do that Pansy, she’s been through enough.” Pansy reluctantly refrained from throwing the journal at Myrtle, much to Ron’s disappointment.

***-***-***

By the end of January, Hermione was able to leave the Hospital Wing tailless and free of any fur or whiskers, much to Pansy’s chagrin.

The three Gryffindors showed Hermione the diary, hoping that she could find some sort of hidden meaning in it.

Hermione looked the book over, frowning. “Maybe it has some secret powers?” Ron scoffed. “If that’s the case then it’s hiding it really well.” Pansy shrugged, snatching the book back. “Maybe it’s shy. We probably should have chucked it.” Harry hummed. “What I want to know is why someone tried to chuck it-”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, or why Riddle got an award when he was at Hogwarts.”

Ron laughed. “It could have been anything. He could have gotten thirty OWL’s, maybe he saved a teacher from the giant squid-” Pansy snorted and added. “While we’re at it, maybe he killed Myrtle or something.”

Hermione pondered. “When was the Chamber of Secrets last opened again?”

Pansy paused, understanding dawning on her face. Ron shook his head. “You can’t be serious ‘Mione-” Hermione stood excitedly. “We know that the person who opened the Chamber of Secrets was expelled right? Well, what if Riddle got his special award for catching the heir of Slytherin? His diary could tell us where the Chamber is, how to open it, what lives in it. Maybe even the person who’s behind the attacks-”

Ron stopped Hermione mid-sentence. “That’s a great theory Hermione except for one tiny flaw, there’s nothing written in the bloody diary.” Hermione huffed, pulling out her wand. “It could be invisible ink!” Pansy reluctantly handed Hermione the diary. The bookworm pointed her wand at one of the blank pages and muttered. “Aparecium.”

When nothing happened Pansy shrugged. “Look, it is possible that this diary is a dead end. It’s likely that Riddle just got this diary for Christmas and never wrote in it.”

Hermione spent a large chunk of the night trying to find something in the diary. Pansy had to practically drag her to bed when it became clear that she wasn’t going to let the diary go. Pansy handed Harry the diary, telling him to keep it away from Hermione before helping the bookworm to bed despite her weak protests.

***-***-***

Although they had practically banned Hermione from touching the diary, Harry and Pansy had taken turns keeping it as they tried to find something in it. Harry had urged Pansy to send her father a letter about the diary but Pansy was reluctant to send anything home. She definitely did not want her mother to get a hold of any of the letters she sent to her father.

Ever.

The attacks seemed to have stopped for now. Pansy had heard Lockhart on occasions bragging to McGonagall that he had scared the culprit off. As if. Ron had even heard that Lockhart was preparing some kind of morale-booster for the students, whatever that meant.

Said morale-booster became apparent when Pansy, followed by Blaise and Theo entered the Great Hall on the fourteenth of February.

The Great Hall was almost completely covered in pink hearts, flowers, and wrappings. Pansy could feel Blaise gagging at the sheer amount of pink in the room. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Blaise mumbled. Theo let out a slight grimace. “Why is this happening? Is this punishment for something?” Pansy shuddered. “I wish I knew.”

“Pansy! Don’t you like what Lockhart did to the Great Hall?!” Hermione exclaimed happily, reaching to take Pansy’s hand. “Uh…” The girl didn’t even have time to wave at Blaise and Theo before she was dragged off to the Gryffindor table.

Ron and Harry were already sitting at the table, Harry with a look of mild disgust while Ron looked like someone had told him that he had eaten spiders without knowing.

Lockhart stood up from his position at the teacher’s table. “Happy Valentine’s Day! And may I thank the forty-seven people who have sent me cards!” Lockhart exclaimed happily. “Yes, I have taken the liberty of planning this little surprise for you all, and there is more!” Lockhart clapped his hands and Pansy nearly gagged when she saw a large group of dwarves enter the Great Hall, all of them were wearing golden wings.

“These little cupids will be roaming around the school all-day giving you your Valentines! And I’m sure your teachers would be willing to join in on the fun too! Professor Snape is quite capable of wiping up a Love potion, and Professor Flitwick is well versed in entrancing charms, the sly dog.” Lockhart continued.

Pansy sank deeper into her seat while Harry frowned. “Snape looks ready to kill Lockhart.” Ron groaned. “For once I actually agree with Snape’s sentiment.” Pansy regarded Hermione with a pleading look. “‘Mione, please tell me that you are not one of the forty-seven students who sent Lockhart a card, please.” Hermione completely ignored the question in favor of drinking her pumpkin juice.

When they were walking through the halls one of the little dwarfs stopped in front of them much to the fear of all of them besides Hermione. “Excuse me, I ‘ave a message for ‘Arry Potter.”

Ron frantically pointed towards Harry while said boy was trying to escape. The dwarf grumbled. “I ‘ave a musical letter for ‘Arry Potter.” Harry tried to stop the dwarf but it was no use. Pansy sighed heavily, waiting for more chaos to unfold, and that was when Draco’s voice was heard. “What’s all this commotion about?” Draco drawled. Pansy signaled for him to be quiet but the dwarf had already begun singing. “His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, his hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he’s really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

Pansy clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter at hearing the song. Harry, the poor boy, looked like he’d rather die than be there. Draco was about to make a snide remark when Percy Weasley dispersed the crowd.

“How much do you wanna bet that it was Ginny?” Pansy muttered to Ron. The redhead sent her a disgusted look. “Please, I don’t want to think of my sister with Harry.” Pansy snorted. “Of course Ron, my bad.” Ron hummed. “Now, how much do you wanna bet that Daphne sends you a card?”

Pansy huffed. “I'd be insulted if she doesn’t, I sent her one already. Lucky for her it's not a musical number, I gave her one in person.” Ron laughed. “You two have an interesting friendship. Also, Daphne probably got a musical number for you too, you know how she likes to embarrass you.” Pansy gasped. “Weasley! How dare you judge my frie- Yeah you’re probably right.”

***-***-***

Harry was clearly having a miserable evening. Ever since the dwarf incident, Fred and George had been singing the embarrassing song whenever Harry entered a room they were in.

Pansy had been studying in the Gryffindor Common room when Harry burst out of the boy’s dormitories. “Hey Harry,” Pansy mumbled, not taking her eyes off of her potions textbook. The green-eyed Gryffindor yelped when Harry grabbed her arm and dragged her up the stairs into the boy’s dorm.

“What the bloody hell Potter? What was that for?!” Pansy exclaimed.

Harry ignored her protests and sat her down at the desk near his bed. Pansy stared down at the diary on the desk before turning towards Harry with a questioning look. “What am I supposed to understand by this Potter?” Harry opened the diary and handed Pansy a quill. “Write in it.”

Pansy frowned. “Wha-”

“Just write in it Pansy, I can’t explain this to you without proof.” Harry pleaded. Pansy shrugged, bringing the quill against the blank first page of the diary. She wrote ‘My name is Pansy Parkinson.’ Before turning back towards Harry. “Alright, what now?”

Harry pointed at the diary. “Look.”

Pansy stared down at the diary, the words she had written had disappeared and suddenly, words began to appear.

The Gryffindor stood up sharply, staring down at the diary in shock. The words ‘ _Hello Pansy Parkinson, my name is Tom Riddle. Did you take this diary from Harry Potter?_ ’

Harry gestured towards the diary. “See?” Pansy rubbed the back of her neck in thought. “Yes Potter, I can see. What should we do?” Harry handed the quill to her. “Respond, he might be able to tell us more about the Chamber of Secrets.”

Pansy shrugged, cautiously sitting back down on the chair in front of the desk. She waited for the words to disappear before writing her own response. ‘Harry and I found this diary. Someone had tried to flush it down the toilet.’

The written words slowly faded away on the paper and a response appeared. _‘You’re lucky that I recorded my memories in a more permanent way than ink. There are too many people that would try to silence me.’_

‘What do you mean?’ Pansy wrote back. _‘This diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were covered up.’_

“Ask him if he knows anything about the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry muttered to Pansy. “Okay Potter but this guys seems a little sketchy don’t you think?” The boy nodded hesitantly. “Yes, but he is our only lead right now.”

Pansy reluctantly wrote down the question in the diary, she was definitely not expecting the long reply that she got. _‘I do know about the Chamber. We were told that it was a legend but in my fifth year it was opened and the monster attacked several students before it eventually killed someone. I caught the person who did it and he was expelled but the headmaster at the time, professor Dippet, did not want others to know what had happened, he was too ashamed to admit that he let something like that happen. So made me take a vow of silence. A story was told, stating that the girl had died in a freak accident. And of course, they gave me a shiny engraved trophy for my troubles. What they didn’t know was that it could happen again, the monster remained alive and the person who released it was not imprisoned like they should have been.’_

Harry grabbed the quill out of Pansy’s hand and frantically wrote down his next question. ‘This is Harry, It’s happening again. There have been two attacks so far and no one is even a suspect. Who opened the Chamber last time?’

_‘I can’t tell you, but I can show you if you'd like?’_ Riddle replied quickly. _‘I can take you two inside my memory of the night I caught him and show you.’_ Harry sent Pansy a questioning glance. Pansy shrugged. “Go for it, might as well get all the information we can get.”

As soon as Harry wrote ‘Ok’ in the diary the pages began to turn rapidly, stopping on a page where the words ‘13 of June’ appeared on the top. Pansy felt her body lift off the chair as she was transported into the diary, a bright light nearly blinding her.

When the light dimmed, Pansy cautiously opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. Harry stood near her, leaning against a set of stairs tiredly. Pansy frowned when she finally recognized where she was, this was Dumbledore’s office, she’d recognize that wooden desk anywhere. An old man that Pansy did not recognize was sitting at the desk looking through a letter.

“Sorry I disturbed you, I’ll be going now.” Pansy jumped when she heard the voice speak behind her.

The person behind her was a pale boy with slicked-back dark hair and a monotone expression on his face. When the boy turned on his heel the man at the desk lifted his head and spoke. “Tom, there you are. Sit down please.”

The boy, Tom, walked back towards the desk, taking a seat in the chair in front of the desk. “Now Tom, you must understand that I cannot let you stay at Hogwarts for the summer, wouldn’t you rather go home for the holidays?” Tom shook his head. “No Professor Dippet, I'd rather stay here than go back to that orphanage.” Dippet frowned. “You are muggle-born?” Tom shrugged. “I’m a half-blood, witch mother and muggle father, but they’re both dead.” Dippet sighed heavily. “Look, Tom, we usually would have been able to make special arrangements for you but with the current circumstance-”

“You mean the attacks, sir?” Tom asked innocently. “Precisely.” Dippet specified. “At this point, you would be safer at the orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry is debating whether to close Hogwarts for good, what with all the attacks.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “But sir, what if the person was caught? This would all stop-” Dippet leaned towards Tom. “What do you mean by that my boy? Do you know who is behind these attacks?”

“No sir, nothing,” Tom said in an even tone. Pansy looked back at Harry, disappointment clear in her face.

“Very well, Tom. You may go.” Dippet said, waving the boy off.

Harry had to drag Pansy behind Tom to get the girl to keep following the student in the memory. “He’s not doing anything Potter and besides he probably doesn't know anything,” Pansy whined. Harry shushed her and pointed towards the place where Tom had run into Dumbledore.

“What are you doing out this late Tom?” A considerably younger-looking Dumbledore asked Tom. The boy offered a curt answer. “The Headmaster wanted to see me, sir.” Dumbledore nodded. “Well, hurry off to bed then. I believe a good night’s rest could do us all some good.”

Tom immediately walked past Dumbledore and, to Harry’s disappointment, went down the staircase to the dungeon. The torches were, of course, left unlit so Pansy had to feel around the walls of the staircase to properly follow Tom’s echoing footsteps. 

The student stopped in front of a door that looked like the entrance to a broom closet. He pulled out his wand before pushing through the door. “Evening Rubeus.” Pansy and Harry tried to squeeze their way into the room, freezing when they saw who was inside. “What are yer doin’ down here Tom?” A familiar gruff voice asked as the person who the voice belonged to stood in front of a huge case. Tom stepped closer, his wand pointed at the cornered student. “It’s over, I know you probably never meant to kill anyone but monsters don’t make good pets.”

“He never killed anyone!” The cornered boy exclaimed. Pansy shivered as she heard a clicking sound come from the trunk behind him. “Come on Rubeus.” Tom taunted. “The dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow, the least Hogwarts can do is make sure the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered-”

“He wouldn’t!” Tom glared. “Step aside.” When the boy didn’t move Tom shot a spell at the trunk behind him. The jet of light illuminated the room for a moment before the trunk fell to the floor with a dull thud.

Something with spindly black legs, sharp fangs, beady eyes, and a hairy body rolled out of the trunk. Tom immediately lifted his wand again and shouted another curse at the thing. “Arania Exumai!” The spell missed and the thing scuttled out of the room. Tom then turned his wand towards the other boy in the room when he tried to run after the thing. “I’m sorry, but you will be expelled for this Hagrid.”

Pansy was about to step forward to make sure what she had heard was correct when the scene in front of her began to swirl as darkness took over. Pansy and Harry were thrown back onto the floor in the boy’s dormitories as the memory ended.

Ron was sitting on his bed and froze when he saw them fall onto the ground. “Uhh, what happened to you two?” Pansy rubbed the top of her head and grimaced. “We think we know who opened the Chamber of Secrets last time.” The redhead jumped up, helping the two Gryffindors stand. “Really? Who was it?”

Harry looked at the closed diary and said. “It was Hagrid. Hagrid was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment!


	7. Spooders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy was not afraid of spiders. But that didn't mean that she was okay with staying in close proximity to one that was even bigger than her!

“Riddle could have gotten the wrong person?” Hermione said uncertainly after Pansy told her what she and Harry had seen in the diary over breakfast.

Ron shrugged, shoving a spoon full of pudding into his mouth. “Hagrid doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to dangerous beasts, remember the dragon he got last year? And Fluffy?” Hermione hummed. “Well...Maybe it was another monster that-”

“How many monsters do you reckon this place can hold ‘Mione?” Pansy asked, waving an arm around to designate the school. Harry cut in. “Well, we always knew Hagrid had been expelled and the attacks probably stopped after Hagrid was expelled or Riddle wouldn’t have gotten his award.”

Pansy snorted. “I still think he sounds like some stickler for the rules, like Percy.” Ron snickered at her comment while Harry shrugged. “He was going to go back to a muggle orphanage, I can’t really blame him for wanting to stay here-”

“Don’t you find that a little suspicious?” Pansy asked. “He seemed pretty desperate to want to stay at Hogwarts. Maybe desperate enough to blame the first person he thought would be an easy target.” Harry was about to protest when Hermione spoke up. “You have a point Pansy, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions yet.”

Pansy shrugged. “I mean, Riddle was a Slytherin. Wouldn’t that usually put him pretty high on your list of Dark wizards?” She retorted sharply, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice. Ron frowned. “You’re not still angry about that are you? Almost everyone I know hates Slytherin, how did you expect me to act?”

“It’s fine Ron I’m just saying. The heir of Slytherin was probably in Slytherin house, so Riddle being a Slytherin means that he could have been the heir.” Pansy stated. Hermione nodded. “That sounds right. He had just learned that he wouldn’t be able to stay at Hogwarts so he could have stopped the attacks then.”

Harry picked at his food. “Either way, we should talk to Hagrid about this at some point.” Ron grimaced. “Yeah sure, we’ll just pop in and ask ‘Hey Hagrid, tell us, have you set anything mad and hairy loose around the castle lately?’”

Pansy shrugged, taking a sip from her cup. “That would be an interesting conversation I suppose.” They decided to hold off on asking Hagrid anything since no attacks had happened for a while and, if Pansy was being honest, it seemed like the whole issue was done and over with.

The next weeks during their Easter holiday were filled with Quidditch practices.

Their next Quidditch match was against Hufflepuff so Wood was training them nonstop for that day. The number of practices Pansy and Harry had to go to had escalated to every night after dinner. The one good thing that Pansy could see happening was that they were clearly getting better at playing out Woods strategies and working together.

But besides that, they also had the ever exciting task of picking the classes they were going to take during third-year.

Hermione was currently sat with them in the Gryffindor Common room, helping them pick out different subjects.

“This could affect our whole future.” She said. Pansy read through the list of subjects available and sighed. “Why do they want us to fill up all of our time slots? I'd much rather save two for breaks.” Ron nodded in agreement while Harry whined. “I just want to drop Potions”

Pansy sneered. “Too bad, we can’t drop any of the subjects we have now, or I would have dropped DADA a while ago.” Hermione frowned. “Why? That subject is important!” Pansy held her hands up in surrender. “Listen ‘Mione, I know that you absolutely love Lockhart but he wouldn’t be able to teach anything to save his life. All I’ve learned from him so far is not to set pixies loose.”

Hermione didn’t bother arguing with her. “Well, I would suggest picking your subjects based on what you want to do after school.” Ron nodded. “Yeah, that’s a given,” Harry muttered sadly. “I don’t know, the only thing I’m really good at is Quidditch.” Pansy wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Oh come on Potter, you’re pretty good at Charms...And other stuff.”

Harry chuckled. “Thanks for the confidence boost Pansy but I think I’ll just take the same subjects as you and Ron, you’re like the best student in our Potions class...You even beat Hermione’s test scores last time.” Pansy grinned. “We all have our strong areas Harry, but I am absolutely rubbish at Charms.”

“‘Mione, you can’t take every subject! That’s like signing up for a death sentence!” Ron exclaimed, watching as Hermione ticked off every subject on the list.

Pansy looked at Hermione’s schedule. “Oh no darling, you’ll suffer an aneurysm before you’re able to finish all of these subjects.” Hermione poked Pansy cheek, pushing the girl away from her schedule. “Shouldn’t you be deciding what subjects you’re going to take?

“I like to live life on the edge ‘Mione, besides I’ll just take the same subjects as Ron and Harry. We’ll be the united front in every class.” Pansy stated while Ron nodded along.

Parvati suddenly burst out of the girl’s dormitories, a panicked look on her face. “Pansy! Someone went through your things!”

Pansy immediately stood and followed Parvati into the dorm with Hermione trailing behind them. Upon entering the dorm Pansy saw the disaster that was her bed. All of her drawers were opened and their content was scattered across the floor. Her trunk was laying on the floor, turned over with its content spilling onto the ground.

Hermione gasped while Pansy immediately went to her bed, digging under the pillow. “It’s not here, Hermione someone took it!” She exclaimed frantically. Hermione asked. “Took what Pansy?”

Pansy sent Hermione a look of disbelief before speaking. “Tom Riddle’s diary, it’s gone.”

***-***-***

The loss of the diary didn’t impact them that much. They had already gotten the necessary information from it and they now had a new theory about the Heir of Slytherin.

It had to have been a Gryffindor.

The only people who could get into the Common room were Gryffindors so the person who took the diary had to have been a Gryffindor. The four Gryffindors put that information away for later since, at the moment, all Harry and Pansy were thinking of was their match against Hufflepuff.

On the day of the match, Wood made sure to remind them of how well they had been training. Pansy rolled her eyes, someone probably told him that positive comments would get people to perform better. That didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the slight ego-boost.

“Can you think of anyone who could have taken the diary Pansy?” Ron asked as he and Hermione accompanied Harry and Pansy to the changing rooms. “I don’t know Ron, it had to have been a Gryffindor but they were also able to get into the girl’s dorm so it must be a girl.”

Ron frowned. “But who would do that?” Pansy shrugged. “If I’m being honest, none of the girls seem like the kind of person who would even get within two feet of any kind of monster. Angelina might be able to but she was training with Katie when the person went through my stuff.”

Pansy made sure to put emphasis on the word training. When asked where she had been Angelina had indeed said that she had been training with Katie but Pansy was sure that other things had happened between them.

“Do we have any leads on what the monster could be?” Hermione asked. Harry shook his head. “All we know is that Pansy and I can hear the monster when it’s near.” Pansy cut in, a frown present on her face. “What I don’t understand is that Harry and I were able to hear the voice of the monster right?” She received nods from the other three Gryffindors. “And we’re both Parselmouths. So that would mean that the monster is a snake right?”

Before anyone could respond, Pansy and Harry froze.

**_“Kill this time...let me rip..tear…”_ **

“What is it, guys?” Ron asked after seeing the distress in Harry’s eyes. Pansy grimaced. “The voice, we heard it again.” Ron looked around frantically. “That means someone else is going to be attacked! What if this time it’s us?!”

Hermione snapped her fingers. “Pansy, thank you. I think I just understood something!. I’m going to go check something at the library!” Pansy tried to tell the girl to stay but Hermione was already running down the hallway. “Damn it, Hermione.”

“What does she understand?” Harry asked frantically. Ron shook his head. “Loads more than us apparently. You two should probably get moving, I’m sure you don’t want to deal with an angry Wood.”

Pansy scoffed. “Yeah sure. We’ll make sure Gryffindor wins this year.” Harry nodded along with her. Ron offered both of them a high-five. “Good luck out there mate, make Gryffindor proud.” Pansy sent the redhead a mocking salute. “Of course Weasley as long as you and Hermione cheer us on.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Good luck both of you, I’m gonna go save Hermione a seat, Merlin knows when she’s going to come back.”

Harry and Pansy walked off towards the changing room, leaving Ron to join the crowd of students sitting in the stands. “Do you think we’ll be able to win?” Harry asked uncertainly. Pansy patted the boy on the back. “Don’t worry Harry, we’ve been training a lot and we were even able to beat the Hufflepuff team last year.”

“Thanks, Pansy.” The dark-haired Gryffindor smirked. “Come on Potter, let’s go and show Wood how good we are.”

Harry followed Pansy onto the field but they were blocked by McGonagall. Pansy gestured towards the field. “Professor, we need to go play-” McGonagall cut her off sharply. “The match has been canceled, all students will be returning to their Common rooms for the remainder of the day.”

“But, why?” Harry asked. McGonagall fixed the two Gryffindors with an almost pitying stare. “I-I think you two better come with me.” Harry and Pansy glanced at each other before following McGonagall down the hall.

They were eventually joined by Ron who was running towards them. “Harry, Pansy, what happened? Why was the match canceled?” Pansy gestured towards McGonagall. “She told us to follow her, why isn’t Hermione with you?” Ron shrugged. “She never showed up, maybe she got held back?” Pansy could sense a feeling of uneasiness growing in her stomach at those words.

When McGonagall led them inside the Hospital Wing, warning bells had begun going off in Pansy’s head. “What happened?” She asked, willing herself not to look at any of the beds. McGonagall looked down at them sadly. “This may come as a shock…”

Pansy didn’t recognize the girl that was closest to them, she looked to be at least a sixth-year, and her tie indicated that she was in Ravenclaw. The real shocker was the person who was laying in the bed next to the first girl.

“...Hermione?”

Ron whispered fearfully, taking in the sight of their frozen friend. Pansy stared blankly at the girl’s body, Hermione’s eyes were wide open, staring at nothing.

McGonagall asked the three Gryffindors a question but Pansy couldn’t even hear her. Her ears were ringing as she stood in shock, staring at the limp body of her friend. How? That was the question Pansy kept asking herself. How did this happen to Hermione? Why didn’t any of them go with Hermione when she went wandering off? Why didn’t Hermione ask for someone to go with her? They all were aware of the bloody monster that was roaming the school and they let their guard down.

Harry and Ron had to guide Pansy to the Gryffindor Common room since that girl seemed to be almost completely catatonic.

Upon entering the Gryffindor Common room, Harry and Ron were immediately directed towards a free spot on one of the couches in the Common room. Parvati helped them seat Pansy on the couch, making sure not to move the girl’s body too violently.

Fred and George were at Pansy’s side immediately, looking the girl over for any wounds. “What happened Parkinson?” Pansy simply shook her head, she was not in the mood to speak yet. Dean and Seamus approached Ron and Harry. “What happened? Who was attacked?” Seamus asked worriedly when he saw the state Pansy was in. Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. “There was another attack, a double attack…” Neville leaned closer to Harry. “Who was it?” Harry gulped. “Uh, a Ravenclaw and-”

“Hermione…”

Pansy whimpered softly. Parvati rubbed Pansy’s knee affectionately, trying to convey her support to the Gryffindor while Fred hugged the girl’s head to his chest. Seamus rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Bloody hell. At least the mandrakes will soon be ready.” Pansy hid her face with her hands, not wanting the others to see her in a vulnerable state.

“It will be fine Pansy, Professor Sprout will be able to un-petrify Hermione soon,” Parvati said, hugging Pansy close. Ron groaned. “I hope so, this whole situation is really annoying.” Pansy chuckled sadly. “Yeah, without Hermione there’s no way I’ll be able to pass any of my exams.”

Her comment earned a few laughs around the room but the mood immediately changed when McGonagall entered the Common room.

“Professor, what will happen now that the attacks started again?” Percy asked. McGonagall held a hand up, silencing the room as she read out a piece of parchment. “New rules will be set due to recent events. All students will return to their house Common room by six o’clock every evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher and no student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. Additionally, all Quidditch training and matches will be postponed and there will be no more evening activities.”

McGonagall rolled up the parchment and let her eyes roam over the students in the Common room. “It is likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught. I will urge anyone who knows anything about this to step forward.”

After McGonagall left Fred spoke up from his position behind the couch Pansy was sat on with Parvati. “So that’s two Gryffindors, a Gryffindor ghost, a Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff, and a cat.” One of the third-year Gryffindors spoke up, a glare present on his face. “Haven’t any of the teachers realized that none of the Slytherin have been attacked? Isn’t it obvious that the Heir of Slytherin is in Slytherin? They oughta just chuck the whole lot of them out-”

Pansy stood abruptly, pointing her wand at the boy. “Silencio!” She shouted angrily. The boy opened his mouth to yell something at her but no words came out, Pansy mentally gave herself a pat on the back for performing the spell correctly.

Another Gryffindor ran towards the silent third-year. He looked back at Pansy angrily. “What is wrong with you?! Why would you do that to him?” Pansy sneered. “Maybe you should learn to control your bloody actions before you go and badmouth people that you don’t even know.”

“What the bloody hell are you saying? He hasn’t done anything!” Pansy narrowed her eyes. She turned back towards the twins. “Do you two know where Ginny is?” George gestured near the fireplace.

The youngest Weasley had been staring at the fireplace but now she was fully staring at Pansy. The dark-haired girl gestured towards the silenced boy. “Can I ask you a question, Ginny?” The girl nodded slowly. “Is this the boy who attacked you and Astoria?”

Upon receiving a nod from Ginny, Pansy turned back towards the boy. “That is what I meant. If you decide to go out and hurt innocent first-years whether they are Slytherin or not, you cannot possibly put the blame of something as monumental as this on a house whose members you keep antagonizing!”

The boy stood angrily, pointing his wand at Pansy. “You aren’t in a good position to judge us, you don’t deserve to be here anyway. You’re no different than those filthy snakes.” Ron was about to intervene when the boy launched a hex towards Pansy. “Redactum Skullus!”

Pansy was about to duck when a body moved in front of her, shouting a spell. “Protego! Expelliarmus!” Pansy could feel a small smile forming on her face when she recognized Angelina.

The older Gryffindor shot the two boys a glare. “I don’t know what you expected to happen after doing that but I can assure you that Professor McGonagall will be informed of this,” Angelina growled. “If the Slytherin are as bad as you think they are, stooping to their level and attacking people solely because of their house simply means that you are no better than them, so I wouldn’t recommend bragging about your exploits here. Leave.”

The two boys scrambled towards the boy’s dorm, eager to get away from Angelina who still looked like she would hex them on the spot.

“Thanks, Angie but Parkinson probably could have taken them,” Fred said, grinning at Angelina. The girl raised an eyebrow. “Of course, a second-year against two third-years is such a fair fight.” George cut in. “Don’t take it the wrong way, I’m sure Parkinson appreciates your help.”

Pansy chuckled, pocketing her wand. “Yeah, thanks for the backup Angelina.” The girl shrugged. “It was nothing, those two had it coming.” Fred saw Katie slowly making her way towards Angelina and grinned. “Why hello Miss Bell, what is your opinion on Angelina intervening for our dear little Parkinson?”

Katie chuckled. “Well, it was rather nice of her to step in and protect the younger Gryffindors.” George snorted. “Yes of course.” Katie held Angelina’s hand, smiling up at the girl. “It’s kind of cute don’t you think? She acts like a big bad Gryffindor but she’s really just protecting those smaller than her.”

Angelina blushed. “Katie stop.” Fred grinned. “Now Angelina, let the girl speak.” Pansy nodded along, glad for the distraction. “Yeah Angelina, don’t you know how to treat a lady?” Angelina was about to retort when Katie planted a kiss on her cheek. “Come on Angie, it’s getting late.”

Fred wolf-whistled as the two went up into the girl’s dormitories. George leaned down towards Pansy and the other second years. “Who wants to place bets on when those two will snog?” Ron grimaced. “I’m out.” Seamus laughed. “Come on Weasley, live a little. I’m putting five galleons on them confessing in two years.” Fred nodded. “Alright, I’m writing everyone’s bets down so be sure of what you are betting on.”

Pansy was about to place her own bet when Ron and Harry pulled her back. “Hey! What is it?” Ron whispered. “Listen, Pansy, I know that you’re trying to ignore what happened with Hermione but you can’t just gamble your money away like that.” Pansy shrugged. “Whatever.”

“We’re going to go see Hagrid,” Harry said. “But only two of us can go, if we’re all missing people will get suspicious.” Pansy raised an eyebrow. “So? Just take Ron.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m going to sit this adventure out.” Pansy waved her arms in confusion. “What? Why?” Ron shrugged. “Between all of us, Dumbledore is more likely to forgive you two for any rule violation.”

“I guess you have a point, but how are we going to sneak out?” Pansy asked. Harry looked up in determination. “I think it’s time to bring my dad’s old cloak out again.”

***-***-***

Sneaking down the halls with an invisible cloak wasn’t as nerve-racking as it had been the year before. The halls were all empty and deserted, the most Pansy and Harry had to worry about was making too much noise with their steps.

When they arrived in front of Hagrid’s hut, Pansy brought her hand out to knock on the huge door. Hagrid answered the door, a crossbow held tightly in his hand. “Who’s there? Show yerself!”

Pansy pulled the cloak off of her and Harry. She gestured towards Hagrid’s crossbow incredulously. “What’s that for?” She exclaimed. Hagrid lowered the weapon, stepping aside to let the two Gryffindors in. “I’ve been expectin’...it doesn’t matter, come in quick.”

When the two students were settled inside the hut Pansy finally spoke. “Are you okay Hagrid?” Harry continued. “Did you hear about Hermione?” Hagrid nodded sadly. “Oh, I heard about Hermione. How are you two holdin’ up? And Ron?”

Harry shrugged. “We’re okay I guess, Hermione wasn’t killed after all…” Pansy hissed. “Maybe, but when we find whoever is behind this I will make them regret ever attacking anyone.” Hagrid nodded. “I’m sure Hermione would be overjoyed that yeh three are still doing everything you can to help her.”

Suddenly a knock was heard coming from outside. Hagrid immediately gestured for the two Gryffindors to hide. “Put the cloak on and don’t make a sound yeh hear?” Pansy threw the cloak over her and Harry as they backed up in one of the corners of the hut.

“Good evening Hagrid.”

Pansy heard Harry let out a small sigh of relief when he saw that it was Dumbledore who was at the door. Another man followed behind Dumbledore. “Who’s that? Harry asked. Pansy whispered back. “That’s the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.”

Hagrid looked surprised at seeing the Minister here. Fudge shook his head sadly. “This is bad business Hagrid, very bad business. After four attacks I had to come here, the Ministry has to act.”

“I never-” Hagrid choked out, clearly knowing why Fudge was here. “I would never, Professor-” Dumbledore turned towards Fudge. “I want to make this clear Minister, that Hagrid has my full confidence and I believe he is innocent.”

Fudge sighed. “Look, Albus, Hagrid doesn’t have the best track record and besides, the school governors have been in touch-” Dumbledore raised his voice slightly. “I have told you already Cornelius, taking Hagrid away will solve nothing.” Fudge shifted nervously. “Something needs to be done Albus, and if Hagrid isn’t the culprit he’ll be back here in no time but right now I need to take him-”

“Take me where?” Hagrid asked, voice trembling. “Not to Azkaban?” Fudge looked down at the floor sadly. “For a short amount of time only, it’s a precaution Hagrid if someone else is caught you’ll be released-”

Pansy stifled a yelp when another knock was heard coming from outside. Both her and Harry waited anxiously to see who was at the door.

When Lucius Malfoy entered the hut Pansy couldn’t help but wonder why Draco’s father would bother coming to Hogwarts.

“Already here fudge? Good.” Lucius stated. Hagrid glared at the man. “What’re yeh doin’ here? Get outta my house!” Lucius sneered, looking around the hut. “Oh my dear fellow, I have no pleasure being inside your...House?” Lucius sent Fang a disgusted look when the dog stood near Hagrid.

“I was looking for the Headmaster and was told that he was here.” Dumbledore hummed. “What is it you wish to tell me, Lucius?” Harry frowned. “What could he want to say to Dumbledore?” Pansy shrugged. “Listen, Potter, I’m sure we’ll know soon.”

Lucius shook his head sadly. “Dreadful things Dumbledore. The board of governors has charged me with giving you your order of suspension.” Dumbledore took the piece of parchment that Lucius was holding out and looked it over. “You’ll see all twelve signatures on it, we fear that you’ve lost your touch...At this rate there will be no muggle-borns left at Hogwarts, and what an awful loss that would be.”

“Yeh can’t take Dumbledore away, without him the muggle-borns won’t stand a chance!” Hagrid exclaimed. Dumbledore held a hand up. “Calm yourself Hagrid, if the governors want my removal I shall, of course, step aside.”

Harry sent Pansy a panicked glance, without Dumbledore the attacks would probably increase tenfold.

“However,” Dumbledore added. “You will find that I will have only truly left the school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” The hidden students tensed when, for a brief moment, it seemed that Dumbledore was staring at them.

Lucius hummed. “An admiral sentiment Dumbledore, I’m sure your...unique way of running things will be missed.” Dumbledore nodded before following Lucius out. Fudge gestured for Hagrid to follow him. The half-giant stood, clearing his throat. “Well, if anyone was looking for anything I would tell them to just follow the spiders, that would lead them right to it.”

Fudge looked at him in confusion. “And someone will have to feed Fang while I’m away,” Hagrid added as he walked out of the hut with Fudge.

When Harry, Pansy, and Fang were the only ones left in the hut they shed the cloak.

“What are they doing? Without Dumbledore, we’re all done for.” Pansy muttered in annoyance. Harry looked around the hut worriedly. “I can’t believe they actually took Hagrid away.” Pansy scoffed in disdain. “Politics is a complicated game Potter, people are willing to do horrible things to preserve their image.”

Harry gestured towards the door, “We should probably go back to the castle, I don’t think people will be happy if we lose points for sneaking out like last year.” Pansy nodded. “Fine, we need to tell Ron what happened though. Can’t leave Weasley in the dark forever.”

***-***-***

A school without Hermione was awful.

Pansy never thought she’d miss the bookworms nagging and the color-coded schedules. Classes were also duller without Hermione, no one seemed to ever raise their hand to contradict whatever the teacher said, and if anyone did do that, they weren’t as entertaining as Hermione.

On top of that, Madam Pomfrey had banned everyone from seeing any of the petrified victims in the Hospital Wing. She and Ron had wanted to argue but Madam Pomfrey hadn’t allowed them to say anything against her judgment.

With Dumbledore gone, panic was quick to spread around the school, even Fred and George had not been able to keep their cheerful mood for long. Everyone looked tired and tense, waiting for the next attack to happen so that they could finally leave school.

Harry had Ron and Pansy meet almost daily to discuss the information they had gotten from Dumbledore and Hagrid.

Dumbledore’s hint was complicated to understand. He had said that help would always be present at Hogwarts but he never mentioned what that help was or where it was. Hagrid’s hint was easy though, the only issue was that it seemed like every spider had already vacated the castle in fear of whatever was hiding inside.

Even the Slytherins were afraid. Pansy had spoken with Theo about the issue and he had said that he was worried. Theo was a half-blood so he had told Pansy that he was a potential target. Blaise, Daphne, and Millicent had taken care of that easily though, stating that if Theo stayed with them at all times the monster wouldn’t attack him. Why would it waste its time with a half-blood when three purebloods would be caught in the crossfires?

There was one person who seemed happy, and Pansy used that term loosely. That person was Draco.

The Malfoy heir was rarely seen without a grin on his face after receiving the news that Dumbledore had been suspended. Draco was constantly gloating that it was his father that got rid of Dumbledore. Pansy was sure that Ron was ready to strangle Draco when he told Snape that he should apply to the post of Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Another person who didn’t seem destabilized by the previous events was Lockhart. If Pansy had a galleon for every time she had wanted to punch the man she would be rich by now.

The man was convinced that the threat had passed and that the culprit was Hagrid. That alone caused most of the second-year Gryffindors to gain a severe dislike for Lockhart.

A week passed before the Gryffindor trio decided to act. Harry had spotted several spiders heading towards the Forbidden Forest and had deduced that that was where they should go. Pansy had agreed to accompany Harry into the Forest that night while Ron had decided to opt-out of any adventures involving spiders.

Pansy honestly couldn’t blame him.

Harry and Pansy snuck out of the castle and headed towards Hagrid’s hut. They let themselves in and Pansy immediately crouched down to pet Fang. “Hey Fang, you ready to go for a little walk?” The dog barked happily, licking Pansy’s face.

“Pansy, I don’t think we should bring Fang-” Harry began before being cut off. “Yeah, I get it, Harry. Just let me feed him first.”

By the time Pansy had emerged from the hut, Harry had already found a trail of spiders that led into the Forest. “Okay, you ready?” Pansy asked. Harry, nodded, muttering ‘Lumos’ under his breath as they walked into the Forest

The Forbidden Forest hadn’t changed much since the last time Pansy had wandered into it, if anything it seemed a little more creepy than usual. The trees still possessed their usual twisted branches but an impending sense of doom seemed to hang in the air.

After a good twenty minutes of following spiders, Pansy was beginning to realize something. “Uh, Harry? Is it just me or are the spiders getting bigger?”

The spiders were, indeed, getting bigger, but the two Gryffindors were adamant to follow the trail so they ignored it. The trail eventually led to a dead-end since there weren’t any more spiders to follow.

“I don’t get it. Did we miss something?” Pansy mumbled. Harry had remained frozen in shock as he stared at the area above him. “Hey Potter, what’s up with you?” Pansy didn’t have the time to do anything before loud clicking sounds surrounded them and they were both grabbed by something.

Pansy looked around frantically to get a good look at whatever attacked her but all she could see were spindly and hairy legs. “Pansy, they’re spiders!” Harry exclaimed. Pansy looked up towards Harry and almost screamed when she saw the large spider that was dragging him on the ground. “Harry those aren’t just regular spiders.”

The spiders eventually led them to a dark clearing. The two Gryffindors were released and fell to the ground painfully. Pansy immediately stood, not planning on becoming dinner for a bunch of spiders. Harry also pushed himself to his feet, observing their surroundings. They were surrounded by spiders who were making clicking sounds to the cave in front of them.

“Who is it? Hagrid?” A deep voice spoke from the darkness in the cave. Pansy’s eyes widened as she saw a huge spider crawl out of the cave, thank Merlin Ron didn’t come with them or he would have had a heart attack.

Harry answered shakily. “We’re friends of Hagrid.” The aged spider uttered a few clicks, causing the spiders to back away from the Gryffindors slightly. “I am Aragog, Hagrid has never sent humans into our woods.”

“He’s in trouble, t-that’s why we’re here.” Pansy stuttered out. “In trouble?” Aragog asked. Pansy nodded nervously. “They think Hagrid has been setting something loose on the student, they took him to Azkaban.”

Aragog clicked his pincers angrily and bellowed. “What? That happened years ago. That’s why they made him leave the school. They believed I was the monster!” Harry cautiously stepped forward. “You mean that you’re not the monster that lives in the Chamber of Secrets?”

More angry clicking followed. “I came from a faraway land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was just an egg. Hagrid cared for me and hid me away in the castle. When I was blamed for the death of that girl he protected me, and even when I was chased out, he gave me a home here, he even found me a wife, and you can see how our family has grown all thanks to Hagrid’s kindness.” Aragog hummed. “Besides, the girl was found murdered in a bathroom, that was far from the cupboard where Hagrid had raised me.”

“So, do you know what attacked that girl?” Pansy asked. The spiders around them began clicking as well as if they knew exactly what she was talking about.

Aragog spoke lowly. “We do not speak its name, it is an ancient creature that spiders fear above all else. I never even told Hagrid what its name was despite him asking many times.”

Pansy chuckled nervously. “Well, we’ll just be going now-”

“Go?” Aragog asked, his clicking almost sounded like laughter. Harry nodded. “Yes-” The spiders around them began clicking louder as Aragog spoke. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. My sons and daughters don’t harm Hagrid on my command but I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders knowingly into our hollow, so goodbye, friends of Hagrid.”

Pansy frantically looked around them, the spiders were now surrounding them and more were falling from the trees above them. She pulled out her wand as she and Harry stood back to back. “Do you have a plan, Harry?” Pansy asked, panic clear in her voice.

Harry was about to respond when something with bright lights drove through the spider barrier around them.

“What the-” Pansy began when she realized that the thing that had saved them was a small blue car. Harry, on the other hand, immediately grabbed her arm and dragged her into the car. “Potter, what is this?” Harry yelped when the car doors shut suddenly. “This is Mr. Weasley’s car, I thought it was completely lost.”

Pansy gripped the seat under her in fear as the car flew away from the spider-infested hollow. A few spiders tried to follow them but the car eventually managed to lose them in the thick trees. Branches were constantly flying past them as the car crashed through them.

The car eventually stopped at the edge of the Forbidden Forest near Hagrid’s hut. Harry exited the car and looked back at Pansy who was still hanging on to her seat for dear life. “Pansy? You can get out now.” Pansy shakily pushed herself out of the car, afraid that the thing would take off with her still inside.

“Let’s never do that again.” She mumbled. Understanding dawned on Harry’s face. “You’ve never been in a car before right?” Pansy grumbled. “Of course, why use cars when you can just apparate? Follow the spiders, for Merlin’s sake! We could have been eaten alive!” Harry grimaced. “Yeah, but we have information now.” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Not much, the spider didn’t give us much. All we really know is that Hagrid didn’t do it and that spiders are scared of the monster.”

“Wait, Aragog said that the girl was killed in a bathroom right?” Pansy nodded and Harry continued. “What if she never left?” Pansy winced, shoulders slumping in discomfort. “No, you don’t really think that-” The more she thought about it the more it made sense.

Pansy looked up at Harry in defeat. “The girl was Moaning Myrtle wasn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment!


	8. The Chamber of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The school apparently needs a group of thirteen-year-olds to solve their problems.

“I can’t believe that all those times we were cooped up in that bathroom she was just five sinks away from us,” Ron grumbled in annoyance at breakfast.

Pansy shrugged. “We can beat ourselves up about it later Ron, we have exams to focus on anyways.” Ron snorted. “Can you believe they’re giving us exams with everything that happened? How am I supposed to write a bloody essay when I know that something is hiding in the school trying to kill me?”

“Just be thankful you didn’t have to go into the Forbidden Forest with us, those spiders were bloody huge, you wouldn’t have lasted a minute.” Pansy sneered, picking at the scrambled eggs in her plate.

Ron rolled his eyes. “And I already said thanks to you and Harry, I don’t understand how you two found my dad’s car though, I thought that thing had gone completely rogue.”

Pansy stood from the table and gestured towards the open doors of the Great Hall. “Yeah well, we should probably go study, our first exam is in three days.” Ron sighed loudly as he stood. “Come on Weasley, if we finish this now we can...Yeah never mind.”

Ron laughed. “You’re still not used to the whole ‘Don’t go anywhere without a professor’ rule?” Pansy snorted. “Of course, I already broke that rule twice.”

“Students, I have an announcement!”

All eyes turned towards Professor McGonagall who was now standing from her chair at the teacher’s table. A few students yelled out joyfully. “Dumbledore is coming back?” Another also yelled out. “You caught the Heir of Slytherin?”

McGonagall shook her head. “Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are now ready for cutting. Tonight we will be able to revive those students who have been petrified. Hopefully, we will also be able to catch the culprit by the end of the year.”

Cheering erupted from every table in the Great Hall, Pansy clapped along excitedly, with Hermione helping them they would definitely be able to catch the one responsible for the attacks. “We won’t need to talk to Myrtle then,” Ron told Pansy happily. “Hermione probably will have all the answers when she wakes up.” Pansy snickered as she nodded.

At that moment, Ginny came over to their table and sat next to Ron. Pansy narrowed her eyes, the youngest Weasley seemed tenser than usual and had a scared look on her face. Ron hummed. “What’s up?”

Ginny twisted her hands nervously as if she was debating whether or not she should tell them a secret. Ron frowned when he didn’t get a response and turned towards his sister. “Well? Spit it out.”

“I-I need to tell you something.” She muttered, rocking her body back and forth. Pansy leaned forwards and whispered. “Does it have to do with the Chamber?” Ginny inhaled deeply, she was about to answer when Percy walked up to them. “Hey Ginny, if you’re done eating I’ll take the seat thanks.”

Pansy wanted to tear her hair out when Ginny silently stood and left. Ron glared at Percy. “Why did you do that? She was about to tell us something about the Chamber of Secrets!” Percy rolled his eyes. “Oh, that has nothing to do with the Chamber.” Pansy frowned. “And how do you know this exactly?”

“W-Well, if you must know Ginny walked in one me doing...The point is that I told her not to tell anyone, but clearly she can’t hold on to secrets...It’s nothing really.” Percy stumbled as he tried to speak, Pansy raised an eyebrow at him, glancing at Ron. “What were you doing Percy?” Ron asked.

Obviously, Percy refused to tell them anything so it didn’t take long for the two Gryffindors to get up and leave. Unfortunately, they had to be escorted to their Common room by Lockhart, thank Merlin Harry wasn’t with them.

Lockhart was still under the impression that there was no danger in the school and that everyone was safe because of him. The professor believed that he had scared away the person behind the attacks.

“Mark my words.” Lockhart began, walking Ron and Pansy through the halls. “The first words out of those poor petrified people’s mouths will be ‘It was Hagrid’. Honestly, I’m surprised, Professor McGonagall thinks all this security is necessary.”

“I agree sir,” Pansy said Ron immediately sent her an incredulous look. Lockhart nodded happily. “Thank you, Pansy, I mean we teachers have quite enough to do already, without walking students to classes and standing guard all night-” Pansy nodded. “Yes sir, why don’t you leave us? We can easily return to our Common room by ourselves.”

Lockhart nodded. “That sounds about right Pansy, I’ll go prepare for my next class.”

Ron glared at him as Lockhart left. “He’s probably off to curl his hair or something.” Pansy snickered. “Yeah, but now we can go to Myrtle’s bathroom.” Ron grinned, offering Pansy a high-five. “Nice going Parkinson, now let’s go. Harry will probably start wondering why we aren’t in class.”

They were about five feet away from the bathroom when McGonagall caught them.

“Parkinson! Weasley! What are you doing here?” She asked. Ron stuttered out. “Uh Well, w-we-”

“We wanted to go see Hermione, professor,” Pansy said, keeping her eyes trained on McGonagall. “We haven’t seen her in ages, professor, we just wanted to tell her about the Mandrakes, and that she will soon be able to move again.”

McGonagall nodded. “Ah, yes. Of course, I realize that this is probably harder to take if one is a friend of the victim. I understand, you may see Miss Granger, I will tell Professor Binns why you will be late.” Pansy smiled up at the professor. “Thank you, we’ll be going now.”

Pansy and Ron quietly began walking towards the Hospital Wing. Ron exhaled loudly. “That is the best excuse you have ever come up with Pansy, hands down.” Pansy chuckled, holding her arms out. “I try Weasley, we can go talk to Myrtle later.”

Madam Pomfrey let them into the Hospital Wing when they said that they had gotten permission.

Ron leaned his head against his propped up fist as he looked down at Hermione. “I wonder if she saw her attacker.” Pansy hummed in acknowledgment, running a finger against Hermione’s closed fist.

“We probably should have come here with Harry,” Ron mumbled. Pansy chuckled. “Yeah-” Pansy paused when she felt her thumb run over something rough. She looked down at Hermione’s fist, frowning when she recognized a white, crumpled up piece of paper. Pansy leaned forward, pulling the paper out of Hermione’s hand.

Ron stood up and walked over to Pansy, looking at the paper. “What’s that?” Pansy looked up to see if Madam Pomfrey was near them.

When she saw that the nurse had left she started to read the content of the paper in a low voice. “Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach a gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.”

Underneath the huge paragraph of text, one word had been scrawled hastily onto the paper, ‘Pipes’.

“Ron.” Pansy began. “This must be the monster that’s hiding in the Chamber of Secrets.” Ron nodded. “That makes sense, you and Harry are able to understand snakes. But, it says that the Basilisk is able to kill people with one look, so why is it that no one has died?”

Pansy pondered, glancing at the mirror near Hermione’s bed. “No one looked at it directly.” Ron frowned. “What? How do you figure that happened?” Pansy gestured towards the mirror. “Think about it Ron, Colin saw it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick and Hermione had the mirror...She must have just found out about the Basilisk and warned the Ravenclaw, she probably saw its reflection in the mirror.”

Ron’s eyes widened in recognition. “And Mrs. Norris saw the reflection in the water, it all makes sense.” Pansy grinned. “See? You can be smart when you want to, Ron.” The redhead jokingly elbowed Pansy as she laughed.

“Wait, if a huge snake was wandering around the halls don’t you think someone would have noticed?” Ron asked. Pansy handed the piece of paper to Ron. “Hermione figured that one out too, it’s been moving through the pipes, that’s probably also why I was always hearing the voice coming from the walls.”

Pansy rubbed the back of her neck. “But, that means that the Heir is a Parselmouth to, how else would they be able to control the Basilisk?” Ron pursed his lips in thought. “Well, it can’t be you or Harry. Do you know any other Parselmouths?” Pansy grimaced. “Not really, there aren’t many people in general who can talk to snakes, Ron.”

“Either way, we can tell McGonagall now. This would definitely help them find the person responsible.” Pansy nodded. Ron grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the Hospital Wing as they headed towards the staff room.

Before they reached the room they conveniently ran into Harry in the halls. The boy was behind a wall as if he was hiding from someone.

“Hey, Harry,” Pansy whispered in the boy’s ear. Harry jumped in surprise before turning towards the two Gryffindors. “Hey, Pansy, Ron, look.” Harry gestured towards the wall in front of them. Pansy leaned forward and saw a group of teachers standing in front of a wall where the words ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever’ were written.

McGonagall shook her head sadly, reading the words written on the wall before them. “It happened again, a student has been taken into the Chamber itself.” The three hidden Gryffindors gasped quietly. “What should we do?” Flitwick asked. “We should send all of the students home tonight, I’m afraid this is the end of Hogwarts.” Madam Hooch spoke up quietly. “Minerva, which student was taken?”

“Ginny Weasley.”

Pansy could practically feel Ron collapse behind her. The redhead leaned back against the wall that was hiding them from the professors, a defeated look on his face.

Someone came running down the hall loudly, Pansy nearly groaned when she recognized the figure as Lockhart. The man was smoothing down the nonexistent wrinkles of his suit as he smiled at the other teachers. “So sorry I’m late, what have I missed?”

Snape stepped forward, a small smirk on his face. “There he is, just the man we needed. A girl has been snatched by the monster Lockhart, taken into the Chamber of Secrets. Your moment has come at last.” Lockhart paled. Professor Sprout cut in. “That’s right Gilderoy, weren’t you saying just last night that you’ve known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?”

Pansy snickered silently at the look of complete shock on Lockhart’s face. “Um, well I-”

Flitwick joined in. “Yes, didn’t you tell me you knew what was inside of it?” Lockhart stuttered out. “D-did I? I don’t recall-” McGonagall nodded along. “Well, I suppose we’ll leave it to you then Gilderoy. Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We’ll make sure no one will stand in your way.”

Lockhart cleared his throat nervously. “Um, v-very well, I-I’ll be in my office, getting ready” And he left. McGonagall scoffed. “Right, that got him out from under our feet. Now I want the heads of houses to go inform the students of what has happened. Tell them that the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Make sure that no students are left wandering the corridors.”

The teachers eventually left, allowing the three Gryffindors to move closer to the words scrawled on the wall in red. Ron still looked devastated. “D-do you think she’s still alive?” Harry gulped. “We can’t know for sure.”

Pansy turned and gripped Ron’s shoulders. “Listen, Ron, we’re going to go to Lockhart and tell him everything we know okay? If he’s really going down there then he needs all of the information he can get.” Ron’s lip quivered slightly. “But what if-”

“Ron!” Pansy yelled, getting the redheads full attention. “I swear to you, we will get your sister out of there okay?” Ron nodded, wiping his eyes. “Okay, thanks, Pansy.” The green-eyed Gryffindors patted his shoulder. “It’s fine Weasley, let’s go.”

Harry followed after them as they cautiously made their way towards Lockhart’s classroom, making sure that no one was following them.

Pansy knocked on the door when they stopped in front of Lockhart’s classroom. The professor slowly opened the door, looking down at them suspiciously. “Oh, you three. If you would be quick I’m a little busy at the moment.” He opened the door wider and the three students entered.

“Professor, we have some information for you about the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry said. Lockhart grimaced slightly. “Um, well-”

Pansy glanced around at the man’s office, narrowing her eyes when she saw all the opened trunks around the room. She glared at Lockhart and hissed. “Are you going somewhere, Professor?” Lockhart laughed nervously at seeing the serious expression on Pansy’s face. “Yes, urgent business call, can’t ignore it, got to go-”

“What about my sister?” Ron asked forcefully.

Lockhart moved around the room, shoving his things in trunks. “Yes, that is most unfortunate. No one regrets that more than I-”

“But you’re the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher!” Harry yelled in confusion. “You can’t leave now!” Lockhart mumbled. “Well, nowhere in the job description did it say-”

“So you’re running away?” Pansy asked lowly, tightening her fist. “After everything you...did in your books?” Lockhart cleared his throat. “Books can be misleading-” Ron looked up at him in disbelief. “But you wrote them?!”

Lockhart straightened up, looking down at Ron. “My dear boy, do use your common sense, my books wouldn’t have sold half as well if people didn’t think I was the one who did all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly American warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves-”

“So you’ve been taking credit for things that other people have done?” Pansy said, not sounding very surprised. Lockhart laughed. “Now Pansy, it wasn’t as simple as you make it out to be. I had to go find each of them, hear their exploits before erasing their memory. I am rather gifted when it comes to using memory charms after all. If you want fame you have to be prepared to work for it after all.”

Lockhart shut the last open trunk in his office and sighed. “That’s everything. Oh, one more thing.” He drew his wand, sensing an apologetical look at the three Gryffindors. “Awfully sorry kids but I can’t have you three ruining my fame like this-”

Pansy quickly pulled out her wand and sent a disarming spell towards Lockhart. Lockhart gasped when his wand flew out of his hand and was caught by Pansy. The Gryffindor smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t underestimate someone who wears the Parkinson name, it can come and bite you in the arse.”

“What do you want me to do?” Lockhart asked pleadingly. “I don’t know where the Chamber is.” Harry huffed. “Good thing we know. Follow us.”

Pansy forced Lockhart to follow behind Harry and Ron with her wand pointed at the man’s back. The four of them eventually entered Myrtle’s bathroom much to said ghost's glee.

“Ooh, more visitors!” She squealed happily until she recognized Harry. “What do you want?” Pansy held a hand up in surrender. “Evening Myrtle, we just wanted to ask you how you died if you don’t mind answering us.”

Myrtle smiled, seeming almost flattered by the question. “Oh, it was dreadful.” She gestured towards one of the bathroom stalls. “And it happened right here. I was hiding in here because Oliver Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. I heard someone come in, they said something funny, like in another language. Anyways, I could tell that it was a boy so I got out to tell him to sod off and then...I died.” Myrtle finished, staring up at the ceiling.

“Do you know how?” Pansy pushed. Myrtle shrugged. “Dunno, all I remember is seeing a pair of big yellow eyes over there, by that sink.”

Pansy gestured for Harry to keep watch on Lockhart while she went to examine the sinks. When she turned the tap Myrtle giggled. “That tap never worked.” Pansy looked at the tap more closely, finding a design of a snake on the side of the faucet. Ron leaned forwards. “Maybe you should say something to it, Pansy.”

Pansy snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure that if I tell it to open it will listen,” Ron grumbled, nudging Pansy’s shoulder. “In parseltongue Pansy.”

“Oh.”

Pansy got closer to the tap and hissed out. “Open up.”

A rumbling sound came from the whole sink and Pansy was quick to back away. They watched in amazement as the sink moved to the side, revealing a human-size pipe that leads down.

“Found it,” Pansy muttered, looking down the hole. Ron gestured down. “Should we go in?” Harry shrugged. “Remember what happened last time we went down a suspicious-looking hole?”

“Devil Snare?” Ron and Pansy answered simultaneously. Pansy approached Lockhart, a smile on her face. “Congratulations Locky, you’ve been selected.” Lockhart looked around frantically. “N-now now, you hardly seem to need me now so why don’t we-” Pansy grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him towards the pipe.

Lockhart looked back at her, seeing her wand that was pointed at his back. “Alright, I’m going.” Ron got impatient at some point and kicked Lockhart into the pipe, Pansy honestly couldn’t fault him. “Good going Ron.” The redhead huffed. “That bloody idiot was about to leave my sister to rot in there, it’s the least he could do.”

They waited to hear the sound of Lockhart’s body impacting with the ground at the end of the tunnel. Pansy let Harry and Ron go down next since she had been the one to go first the last time they went down a tunnel.

Myrtle giggled. “Hey Pansy, if you die down there I’ll make sure to save a cubicle for you.” Pansy chuckled nervously. “Um, thanks, Myrtle.” She said before sliding down the tunnel. The tunnel itself was dark so Pansy initially couldn’t tell when she had arrived at the end.

Harry immediately waved his wand and muttered. “Lumos.” Shining some light around the cavern they had spilled into. Lockhart was leaning against one of the cave walls as Pansy looked down at her feet. She grimaced when she saw all of the bones on the floor. “What is that?” Ron snorted. “Lunch, or dinner. Take your pick.”

Pansy walked further into the cavern, freezing when she saw the huge, white lump in front of her. “Is that-” Harry began but Pansy shook her head. “It’s a snakeskin, you know, snakes shed their skin every few months.” Ron stayed away from the skin. “Yeah but look at the size of that thing-”

Ron shrieked, causing Harry and Pansy to immediately turn towards him. Pansy groaned when she saw Lockhart with Ron’s wand in his hand. The man grinned. “I’m afraid the adventure ends here. I shall take a bit of this skin back to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her cold, mangled body. Say goodbye to your memories.”

He raised the wand up and shouted. “Obliviate!” A boom sounded from the wand and Lockhart was thrown back by the force. Pansy threw her hands up to protect her from the force of the blast but Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the collapsing rocks that almost fell over her.

When the noise stopped Harry shouted. “Ron? Ron are you okay?!”

“I’m here. I’m okay but this git isn’t, he got blasted by the wand.” Ron yelled back. “What now? We can’t get through this now. It’ll take too long-”

Pansy looked back at the cavern that seemed to continue on. “Listen Ron, we’re going to go get your sister back okay? You stay there and try to find a way out. If you manage to get out go straight to McGonagall and tell her everything okay?”

“Got it, stay safe both of you,” Ron answered.

Harry and Pansy both continued down the cavern. “Do you think Ginny is still there?” Harry asked. Pansy shrugged. “She has to be Harry, let’s just get there fast okay?” Harry nodded.

They eventually stopped in front of a wall with a hatch of sorts. Two snakes were intertwined in the design on the hatch, both seemed to be staring at the two Gryffindors. Pansy gestured for Harry to do the honors.

The boy gulped before hissing. “Open.”

The serpents parted away from the hatch, allowing it to swing open for them. Pansy pushed through the opening first, entering in a large chamber. At the end of the room was a huge statue of what was obviously Salazar Slytherin’s face. There were also a bunch of pipes around the room, which was probably how the monster got around.

Pansy gasped when she saw the limp, body that was laying in front of the statue.

“Ginny!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end, guys!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter and feel free to leave a comment.


	9. The Heir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy didn't know where the bird came from but it seemed to be on her side so she really didn't care.

Pansy immediately ran towards Ginny’s motionless body, hoping that the girl wasn’t dead.

“Ginny! Ginny, please don’t be dead!” Pansy shook Ginny’s shoulders, trying to wake the girl up. Harry kneeled down near her, staring at Ginny’s emotionless face. “Pansy, she isn’t dead right?” The Gryffindor shook her head. “I-I don’t know. Come on Ginny, wake up!” Harry was about to check for a pulse when a voice spoke from behind him.

“She won’t wake.”

Pansy instinctively drew her wand and pointed it in the direction of the voice. A tall, dark-haired boy was standing a few feet away from them, he seemed human but he reminded Pansy of a blurred image.

“Tom Riddle?” Harry asked cautiously. Tom nodded, not offering a more pertinent response. Pansy gestured towards Ginny. “What do you mean she won’t wake? What happened?” Tom took a step towards them, causing Pansy to back away. “Don’t worry she’s still alive, but only just.”

Harry frowned. “Are you a ghost?” Tom shook his head, muttering quietly. “A memory, preserved in a diary for years.” He gestured towards the statue at the end of the room where a small book was laying on the wet ground.

“You have to help us, Tom, there’s a Basilisk hiding here-” Pansy busied herself with lifting Ginny’s limp body into her arms while Harry spoke to Tom. She managed to lift the girl’s body but when she leaned down to grab her wand it was gone. Pansy turned to look at Tom and saw that the boy was now holding both her and Harry’s wands.

Harry held his hand out, waiting for Tom to return his wand. “Thanks.”

When Tom continued to twirl their wands in his hand Pansy spoke urgently. “Listen, the Basilisk could come any moment, okay? We need to go now.” Tom smiled slightly. “It won’t come unless it is called.” Pansy narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Give us our wands back then.”

“You won’t be needing them,” Tom responded as if it was obvious. Harry stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? I don’t think you understand but we’re in the Chamber of Secrets, we can’t talk right now!”

Tom shook his head. “No, we are going to talk now.”

Pansy looked down at Ginny, the redhead was getting paler and paler every second and they couldn’t afford to sit here and have a tea party with some ghost. She was about to just turn around and leave when Harry asked Tom something. “How did Ginny get like this?”

Tom chuckled pleasantly. “That’s an interesting question, Harry. I suppose one could say little Ginerva is in this state because she opened up her heart and spilled all of her deepest secrets to a complete stranger.” Harry frowned. “What do you mean?” Tom pointed to the diary that was still laying on the floor. “My diary. You see Ginny has been writing in it for months. She’s been telling me all about her pitiful issues, how her brothers always tease her, how most of them don’t ever hang out with her all because of some knock-off death eater, or about how she never thought the great Harry Potter would ever take a second glance at her.”

Pansy felt an uncomfortable feeling creeping up her spine as Tom’s smile widened. “It’s very boring having to listen to some little girl rant but I was nice, I answered back, I was sympathetic and Ginny loved it.” Tom sighed wistfully. “So I grew stronger as Ginny continued to pour bits of her soul, her secrets, into me. After some time, I decided to return the favor. I started to pour some of my soul into her.”

“So...You’re the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets?” Pansy mumbled. “You were controlling Ginny and you made her do those things.” That would explain why Ginny always looked tired and pale after every attack.

Tom laughed. “You are a smart one Parkinson, no wonder you two managed to find this place. You should have seen Ginny’s diary entries when everything started. _‘Oh Tom, there are so many blank slates in my memory. Yesterday I found rooster feathers all over my robe and I don’t know how they got there. Dear Tom, a cat was attacked yesterday and I don’t know where I was but my robe is covered in blood. Tom, Percy keeps saying that I look pale, I think he suspects me. I think I’m the one who’s attacking, everyone!’_ It was very entertaining.”

Pansy clutched Ginny’s body closer to her chest, if what Tom was saying was true the girl must have really been hurting. Granted, Pansy didn’t know what it was like growing up with siblings but she could guess what having six older brothers and being the youngest could do to a first-year.

Tom continued. “It took a very long time for young, stupid Ginny to realize that maybe the diary was to blame. She tried to dispose of it and that’s where you two come in. You found it and I couldn’t have been happier. Of all the students in the castle, it was you two, the very people that I wanted to meet-”

“Why?” Pansy asked bluntly, glaring at Tom. This ghost or whatever was clearly a danger to them and she needed to get Ginny and Harry away from him sooner rather than later.

“Well you see, Ginny told me all about you two. She gushed about the great Harry Potter and told me all about your fascinating history. She also spoke about Pansy Parkinson, how she first hated you for taking her brothers away from her but eventually, she grew to like you for the way you stood up for victims. You were her heroes and I knew I must meet you so I decided to show you my spectacular capture of that oaf Hagrid to gain your trust.”

Harry clenched his fists in anger. “Hagrid is our friend, and you framed him.” Tom shrugged. “It was my word against his, on one side you had Tom Riddle, a poor, parentless, brave and brilliant student, all in all, a model student and on the other hand you had big, blundering Hagrid who got in trouble every other week for trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed. Though I was a little surprised how easily everyone bought it, it took me nearly five years to learn everything I knew about the Chamber of Secrets. There was no way someone like Hagrid would ever have the brainpower for that.”

“Dumbledore didn’t buy it though, he still suspected you right?” Pansy asked. Tom waved his arm around carelessly. “He was quite an annoyance. He was always watching me after Hagrid was expelled but I wasn’t going to let all of my work go to waste so I decided to leave behind a diary with my preserved, sixteen-year-old self in its pages. I knew someone would find it, and when that day came I would be able to finish Salazar Slytherin’s noble work.”

Pansy sneered. “It’s because of people like you that Slytherin house’s reputation is in shambles.” Tom raised an eyebrow at her, a playful smirk on his face. “Really? And how exactly would you have changed that Pansy? I am willing to bet that if you had been sorted into Slytherin you would have acted exactly like me. You would have hated that mudblood that you hang out with, you would have despised the Weasley’s and you would have most likely labeled Harry as the sworn enemy of every Slytherin, so tell me, are you really in a position to lecture me?”

“Well, at least she was willing to change.” Harry stepped in, glaring at Tom. “Unlike you, she learned to accept others and that already makes her better than you. Besides, you won’t be able to finish anyone’s work, you failed. You didn’t kill anyone and all of the petrified people will be cured and-”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Haven’t I already told you? Killing mudbloods doesn’t matter to me anymore, for months my new targets were you two.” The apparition chuckled. “I was so angry when Ginny began writing in my diary again. She had seen Pansy with the diary and panicked, she thought I told you about all of her secrets, about the roosters that she strangled so she waited for the dorm to be deserted and stole the diary back. I knew that you were on my trail so I got Ginny to write that farewell note and come wait down here.”

He gestured towards the girl in Pansy’s arms. “She didn’t have much life left in her anyways, she put too much into the diary. Enough for me to speak to you now, and I have a few questions for you Harry.”

“Like what?” Harry spat out.

“Well.” Tom began, smiling pleasantly but Pansy could see the deadly glint in his eyes. “How is it that a literal toddler with no magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a damn scar while Lord Voldemort powers were destroyed?”

“Why do you care? Voldemort was after your time!” Pansy shouted her patience was clearly running thin.

Tom glared at them. “Voldemort is my past, present, and future…” He used Harry’s wand to make three words appear in the air ‘TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE’

Pansy gestured for Harry to back up from Tom as the boy waved the wand again. The letters rearranged themselves and spelled a sentence that made Pansy’s blood run cold when she read it.

‘I AM LORD VOLDEMORT’

“So you’re-” Tom nodded. “It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, with my most intimate friends of course. Do you really think I would use my filthy muggle father’s name forever? I have some standards. I was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, there was no way I would ever keep the name of a dirty, common muggle who abandoned his child just because he found out his wife was a witch..” Tom chuckled darkly. “No, I fashioned myself a new name that I knew the entire wizarding world would come to fear. A name that would be the calling sign of the greatest wizard of all time!”

“You’re not,” Harry muttered angrily. Tom tilted his head in question. “What do you-”

“Albus Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the world, everyone knows it.” Pansy nodded. “He frightens you, when you were at school you didn’t do anything against him, even now you stay away from him.”

Tom hissed. “Dumbledore was driven out of Hogwarts by the mere memory of me!”

“He’s not as gone as you may think,” Harry stated. Pansy hid her confusion if Harry was trying to bluff Tom she needed to play the part as well.

Tom frowned. “Wha-”

A loud screech sounded from above them. Harry looked up and grinned. “Fawkes!” Pansy watched as the red and gold bird dropped something into Harry’s hands before perching itself on his shoulder.

“A phoenix? And the sorting hat?” Tom muttered, narrowing his eyes as he observed the scene before him. He suddenly began laughing, the sound was magnified as his laughter seemed to echo around the room. “This is what Dumbledore sends his defenders? A bird and an old hat? Do you feel safe now?!”

Tom’s laughter died down. “Well, I suppose now we can have a final battle don’t you think? Let’s match the power of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter.”

“Hey! That’s not-” Pansy was about to step in when Tom jerked Harry's wand in her direction. “I would stay put if I were you, Pansy, I wouldn’t want you to get caught in this fight.” Pansy grit her teeth, she couldn’t do anything against Tom, he was literally the greatest dark wizard to ever exist and what was she? A second year with slightly above average potion scores? She didn’t stand a chance.

Harry nodded towards her. “Stay out of this Pansy, if I fail make sure that Ginny gets out okay?” Pansy begrudgingly stepped aside, moving towards the stairs that led towards the exit. She gently set Ginny on one of the steps before she heard a hiss.

_“Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four.”_

Pansy moved to shield Ginny, turning her back to the center of the chamber when she heard a thud and a loud hiss from behind her. She could hear Harry scrambling away from Tom, most likely because he had called out the Basilisk.

An angry hiss sounded from behind her as Fawkes screeched loudly. _“No! Leave the bird and get the boy! You can still smell him!”_ Tom yelled angrily. Pansy left Ginny on the stairs and rushed back towards the center of the room. Harry had gone into one of the pipes and the Basilisk had followed him inside.

She almost tripped over the black lump on the floor. Pansy kneeled down and grasped the sorting hat, looking it over as she searched for any hidden clues. She eventually turned it over, causing something to fall onto the ground heavily.

Pansy leaned down and picked up the fallen object, it was a sword. She looked it over before holding it in front of her when she heard rushed footsteps.

Harry ran back into the chamber out of breath. Pansy approached him. “Harry, what happened?” The boy gestured behind him. “Fawkes blinded the Basilisk so we can look at it. And I don’t know where Tom went.”

Pansy held the sword up. “This came out of the hat. You think we can use this?” Harry nodded. “If it came from the hat it must be important, but how are we going to hit the Basilisk?” Pansy gripped the sword tightly. “...I’ll draw it out okay Harry? It will try to attack me and I’ll stab it.” Harry frowned. “But, won’t that mean that you’ll be hit?” Pansy shrugged. “There’s a possibility, and if that happens I want you to get Ginny and run got it?”

“But Pansy-” Harry began. “No, last year you saved us from the big bad monster okay? Let me do the sacrifice this time alright?” Pansy said determinedly. Harry reluctantly nodded. “Fine, I’ll go check on Ginny but please try not to get too hurt. Hermione won’t appreciate it if you get hurt.” Pansy laughed. “Sure thing Harry, now go.”

She waited for Harry to get a reasonable distance away from the center of the chamber before hissing. _“Come out, come out wherever you are, you overgrown reptile.”_

Pansy raised an eyebrow when she saw Tom reappear next to her. He was sporting a grin and his eyes were wide with glee. “Oh? Are you prepared to die now? I thought I told you to leave?” Pansy shrugged. “I’m not very good at taking orders from strangers.”

Tom sneered. “So be it. _Come here and kill the girl._ ”

A loud rumbling sound came from one of the pipes in front of her as the Basilisk responded to the call of its master. Pansy tensed up, gripping the sword tightly as the giant snake emerged from a pipe and slithered towards her. It lunged at her blindly, missing her by barely an inch. Pansy jumped back in shock as the Basilisk prepared another strike.

This time it didn’t miss.

Pansy saw the Basilisk’s fang-filled mouth flying towards her, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to dodge it. She gripped the sword and threw herself towards the Basilisk. She managed to drive the sword up to the hilt into the roof of the Basilisk’s mouth.

Blood splattered onto her face and clothes as the red liquid came pouring out of the now-dead snake’s head. Pansy cried out when she felt a fang sink into her forearm. She quickly pulled away from the snake, gripping the fang that was lodged into her arm and pulling it out. The sword clanged down onto the floor loudly as Pansy collapsed onto her knees clutching her wounded arm tightly.

Harry ran towards her, immediately looking the wound over. “Pansy! We need to get the venom out and-” Pansy waved him off, whimpering slightly as stinging pain coursed through her arm. “It’s no use Harry, there’s no cure.” Fawkes suddenly landed near them and laid its head on Pansy’s thigh. Harry smiled tearfully. “Thanks for the help, Fawkes.”

“You’re dead, Parkinson,” Tom spoke up from behind Harry. “Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Look, it’s crying!” Pansy’s eyes widened. She looked down at the bird who had now moved its head so that it lay against her wounded arm.

Tom continued to speak. “I’m going to sit here and watch you die, Parkinson. You will die too Harry, no one knows where the Chamber is and you will eventually die of hunger. Your mother might have bought you twelve years but it ends here Potter!”

Pansy was slowly beginning to feel her arm again as the pain subsided. She flexed her finger to see if they worked and grinned when they did as she commanded. Tom growled. “Get away bird!”

“Too late.” Pansy boasted. Harry looked down at her arm in amazement as the wound closed up. “What-”

“Phoenix tears Potter, they have healing properties,” Pansy explained tiredly.

Tom sighed in annoyance. “I forgot about that. No matter, I’ll simply finish you off myself.” He pointed Harry’s wand at them and was about to shout a spell when Fawkes flew up into the air again. The distraction was enough, Harry grabbed the fallen Basilisk fang and stabbed into the diary that was lying face up on the ground.

Ink began spurting out of the diary as Harry stabbed it over and over again. Pansy covered her ears as Tom’s piercing scream echoed around the chamber for a few seconds before silence returned.

Harry shakily grabbed his wand and Pansy’s as they fell to the ground. Pansy pushed herself up from, moving to grab the diary from the ground. Harry smiled at her tiredly. “We did it.” Pansy laughed. “Yeah Harry, we did it.”

They heard a groan coming from the stairs. Probably Ginny.

They both walked over to the stairs, helping Ginny sit up. The redhead looked up at the two second-years before staring at the form of the dead Basilis. “Did you-” Pansy nodded. “Yeah, we killed it. Nearly died trying but hey.”

Ginny’s bottom lip began trembling as she choked out. “I-I wanted to tell you, at breakfast. But I c-couldn’t say it in front of P-Percy. I opened the C-Chamber of Secrets, but I didn’t mean to. T-Tom made me do it-” Harry patted her knee soothingly. “We know, it's okay.”

Pansy cleared her throat. “While this is great, I think Weasley would want to know that his sister is alive so let’s go.”

They helped Ginny stand and guided her through the hatch they had taken to enter the chamber. When they arrived in front of the hill of rocks that was blocking their way. Ron had managed to move enough rock around to allow them to pass through to his side.

“Ron! We got Ginny!” Pansy stated as she walked through the gap in the wall. Ron cheered. “I knew you would make it.” He immediately hugged Ginny when the girl crawled through the gap in the wall with Harry.

“You’re okay now Ginny. Where did the bird come from? And why do you have a sword?” Ron asked in quick succession. Pansy shrugged. “The bird is Dumbledore’s apparently and the sword is mine now.” Harry chuckled. “The sword is also Dumbledore’s. Where’s Lockhart?”

Ron turned to look behind him at Lockhart who was humming to himself. “His memory is gone. He has no clue who he is or who we are.” Harry hummed. “Do we know how we’re going to get out?”

Pansy gestured towards Fawkes. “Phoenix’s can carry heavy things. Fawkes could probably fly us all out of here.” Fawkes puffed up his feathers proudly as the attention was again directed towards him.

“Are you sure?” Harry asked. Pansy nodded, she tucked the sword into her belt and grabbed hold of one of Fawkes tail feathers. Ron raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Are you sure we aren’t all going to fall to our deaths? Pansy rolled her eyes. “Look, we all have our strong subjects right? I’ve been learning about magical creatures since I was a child, you can trust me with this.”

The others eventually agreed to the idea and grabbed either Pansy’s hand or Fawkes’s tail feathers. Pansy rolled her eyes when she heard Lockhart gasp in amazement as they lifted off the ground and flew out through the pipe.

When Fawkes successfully returned them to Myrtle’s bathroom, Ron collapsed on the tiled floor and groaned. “Let’s never do that again.” Pansy snickered. “Not used to flying Weasley? Didn’t you get here on a flying car?”

Myrtle peeked at them from behind a bathroom stall. “Oh, you’re alive?” Pansy snorted. “Don’t sound so disappointed, I very nearly did die.” Ron frowned. “You what?” Pansy waved his question off. “Long story.”

Harry dusted his robe off. “Let’s go to McGonagall. She’ll be able to help with this.” He said, gesturing towards Lockhart. Pansy nodded. “Right, come on then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah early update


	10. Back to normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape actually gives good advice. Who would have though?

The room remained quiet when Pansy, Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Lockhart entered through the doorway. They were all covered in slime and dust except for Harry and Pansy who also had blood streaked across their face and clothes.

“Ginny!”

Mrs. Weasley exclaimed before getting up from the chair she had been sitting on and hugging Ginny tightly. Pansy glanced at the desk in the center of the room and was surprised to see Dumbledore standing there with McGonagall.

Pansy held in a yell when Mrs. Weasley swept her, Harry and Ron into a hug. “You saved her! How did you do it?” McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. “I think we’d all like to know that.” Pansy stepped forward and placed the ruby-encrusted sword on Dumbledore’s desk as Harry explained what had happened in the Chamber of Secrets.

When he finished explaining McGonagall stared down at them sternly. “So, you found out where the Chamber of Secrets was located and its entrance, breaking a hundred school rules along the way but how on earth did you two come out of there alive?”

Pansy gestured towards Fawkes. “The bird brought the hat that had a sword inside so I stabbed the Basilisk in the mouth and it died, no big.” The adults, minus Dumbledore, all looked at Pansy with incredulous looks on their faces. Harry frowned. “Pansy, if Fawkes wasn’t there you would have died. She got bit by the Basilisk so Fawkes used his healing tears to stop the poison.”

“You what?” Ron exclaimed. Pansy rolled her eyes. “It’s fine. I’m still alive aren’t I?”

“What I would like to understand is how Lord Voldemort enchanted Ginny when my sources say that he is currently hiding in Albania,” Dumbledore spoke softly.

Mrs. Weasley was slowly getting paler. “What? Ginny wasn’t...She hasn’t been enchanted, has she?”

Pansy held up the diary. “It was this, Riddle preserved his sixteen-year-old self in the diary.” Dumbledore hummed. “Brilliant. He was my best student after all.” Upon seeing the confused looks of the others in the room Dumbledore clarified. “Few know that Lord Voldemort was known as Tom Riddle when he went to Hogwarts, he was one of my students.”

“B-But what does he have to do with Ginny?” Mrs. Weasley asked shakily. Ginny nervously looked down at the ground. “I’ve been writing in his diary all year. And he was writing back-”

Mr. Weasley gasped. “Ginny! Haven’t we taught you not to trust anything that thinks for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain? Why didn’t you show this to me or your mother? That thing was clearly full of Dark magic!”

Pansy stepped in, placing a comforting hand on Ginny’s shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on her Mr. Weasley, we all know how manipulative the Dark Lord can be, even if it is his sixteen-year-old self.”

“I believe that Miss Weasley should go to the Hospital Wing immediately. There will be no punishment as Miss Parkinson is correct, much older and wiser wizards have fallen for Voldemort’s charm.” Dumbledore stated. “I will also suggest that you go see Madam Pomfrey as well Miss Parkinson, Fawkes may have healed you of any immediate damage but who knows what other effects Basilisk venom can have.”

Pansy reluctantly nodded. “What about the petrified people?” Dumbledore smiled. “Well, they were all given the Mandrake drought a few hours ago so I would imagine that they are all alright now.” Pansy and Ron’s eyes lit up in happiness. “So Hermione is okay?” Pansy asked excitedly. “Before you leave, I think some actions must be taken.”

Ron froze. “What?”

Dumbledore chuckled. “I remember telling you and Harry that if you broke any other school rules I would have to expel you.” Pansy cut in. “Sir, it was my fault, Ron only came because his sister was in danger-”

Dumbledore held a hand up. “Rest assured Pansy, you will all be receiving the same thing. Thanks to you three the school has been saved and that is why you three will receive Special Awards for Services to the school and...let’s say two hundred points apiece for Gryffindor.”

Ron cheered happily at the news. “Really? That means Gryffindor won the House Cup again!” Pansy chuckled. “Draco isn’t going to like this.” Ron laughed. “Come on, we need to tell Hermione this!” Dumbledore nodded towards them and that was all it took to send Ron and Pansy rushing out of the room with Ginny hot on their tail as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley tried to follow them.

“I can’t believe you almost died and you didn’t tell me,” Ron whined as they stopped in front of the Hospital Wing. Pansy shrugged. “Well I’m not dead am I?” The redhead rolled his eyes. “And you wonder why the hat put you in Gryffindor. You literally almost died and you don’t even care.”

“Who almost died?”

Pansy turned towards one of the beds in the Hospital Wing where someone was sitting up, staring at them. “‘Mione!” She exclaimed, rushing in to hug the girl. Hermione laughed. “It’s nice to see you too Pansy, what happened when I was gone?” Ron chuckled, wrapping Hermione in a hug as well. “A lot, Pansy almost died.”

“You what?” Hermione yelled, fixing Pansy with a stern look. Pansy waved her arms around vaguely. “It’s fine, I didn’t die and I saved Ginny!” She said, gesturing towards Ginny who was standing with her parents as Madam Pomfrey looked her over.

Hermione sighed. “I’m glad you’re still alive, regardless.” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Oh please, I’m the one who should be glad that you’re back. Do you know how tiring it is to deal with Potter and Weasley?”

Ron gasped. “How dare you, Parkinson. We had to deal with your constant whining when Hermione was gone.” Pansy scoffed. “Obviously since I can’t count on you to help me with my homework can I?”

“Oh please, you weren’t whining about homework, you just wanted someone to snuggle with when we were in the Common room.” Pansy frowned. “And that’s a bad thing because?” Ron groaned. “Because you kept complaining about it 24/7! I’m sorry Harry and I don’t have a comfortable chest for you to nap on but you need to learn to live like that!”

“How dare you, Weasley! I can’t believe you would suggest that I only cared about Hermione because of her chest!” Pansy retorted. “Well don’t you?!” Ron asked loudly.

“It’s great to be back.” Hermione chuckled as she watched her two friends argue.

***-***-***

The end of the year feast was definitely a huge event that year.

Almost every student was dressed in their pajamas and was sitting wherever they wanted to sit. There was a mix of students sitting at the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw table while the Slytherin table remained untouched by the other houses.

“Please don’t make me do this Parkinson,” Ron whined as Pansy attempted to drag him towards the Slytherin table. “Come on Weasley, don’t you like some of them?”

Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t be opposed to sitting there.” Pansy cheered. “See? Come on!” Ron groaned. “Why?”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. To build inter-house friendship? We already won the House Cup so might as well some good sportsmanship.” Ron was about to retort when Hermione and Ginny arrived. Hermione frowned at Ron and Pansy. “What are you two doing?”

“Well you see, I want to go sit with the Slytherin but Weasley is being a chicken,” Pansy said though her mouth was immediately covered by Ron’s hand. “Shut up Parkinson!” Ginny smiled shyly. “I would like to sit with the Slytherin.”

“You what?!” Ron exclaimed.

Pansy shoved his hand away. “Why are you surprised? Didn’t you know that your sister is friends with Astoria?” Ron frowned. “Who?” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Daphne’s sister.” Ron sighed. “Fine, but if any of them say anything about my family I’m leaving.” Pansy shrugged. “Understandable.”

The Gryffindor trio and Ginny followed Pansy as she walked over to the Slytherin table. Blaise smirked when he saw her approach. “Well, well, well. I’ve never seen lions walk right into the pit of vipers before.”

“Oh stuff it Zabini,” Pansy said jokingly as she sat next to Millicent. Daphne raised an eyebrow at her. “Really Pansy? Did you seriously bring your herd of Gryffindors here?” Ron rolled his eyes. “We can leave if you want.”

Daphne chuckled. “I’m messing with you, Weasley. Hey Hermione.” Hermione smiled at Daphne as she sat next to Pansy. “Hello Daphne, it’s nice to see that you are doing well.”

“I’m doing quite well Hermione. Are you alright though? Since you were petrified and all.” Hermione nodded. “I’m fine now. Besides, I’m not the one who decided to go fight a giant deadly snake in a hidden chamber underneath the castle.”

Pansy glanced at Harry and Ron. “I feel like she’s talking about us.” Harry nodded. “Probably.” Blaise snickered. “Look at it this way Daph, they literally saved the school from closing.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “I suppose that should give them a pass.”

“Pansy is a hero!” Astoria cheered happily. Millicent didn’t even attempt to mask her snort when she saw the blush on Pansy’s face. Blaise snickered. “I don’t know if I’d go that far Astoria, Parkinson still can’t deal with compliments apparently.”

“I hate you all, so much,” Pansy muttered. “Except Astoria and Ginny.” Ron chuckled. “I’m offended Pansy, didn’t we bond last year?” Pansy shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you aren’t that bad. Pass the gravy Potter.”

They managed to have a surprisingly normal and civil dinner despite the initial issues. Seeing Ginny and Astoria speaking normally seemed to have pushed Ron to give the Slytherin more of a chance and Harry was content with speaking quietly with Theo.

Pansy would occasionally throw glances at Draco who seemed content with ignoring them and sitting with Crabbe and Goyle.

Thankfully they didn’t have any end of the year exams because of obvious reasons. So the rest of the summer term was spent doing a minimum amount of work and going to their normal classes, except for Defence against the Dark Arts.

Harry and Pansy were labeled as the school’s heroes because of their roles in getting rid of the Basilisk but that honestly just gave the two Gryffindors more reasons to never leave their Common room.

Hagrid had returned barely three days after they got rid of Riddle and Pansy and the others had immediately gone down to greet him. He hadn’t been in Azkaban for that long but the stories that he told them were definitely nightmare fuel, especially the Dementors.

Nearly a full week had passed and Pansy had somehow found a spot under a tree in one of the courtyards around the castle that was completely deserted. It had been nearly impossible for her to find any place where she could be alone with her thoughts so she definitely cherished those rare moments.

“Having fun?”

Pansy glanced up at the figure standing next to her. She immediately stood. “Professor Snape! I was just...Enjoying some alone time.”

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Not that fond of fame are you?” Pansy chuckled awkwardly. “Well...It’s not as exciting as I thought it would be. It’s actually kind of annoying.”

“I see.” Snape hummed. A few minutes passed in complete silence before Pansy spoke up. “Sir, you went to school with Tom Riddle right?” Snape nodded, Pansy cleared her throat nervously. “Well, there’s something that he said that’s been bothering me-” Snape glanced at her. “I think the person you should be talking to is Dumbledore, not me.” Pansy shook her head. “No, you’re a Slytherin and you knew Riddle. You’re exactly the person I should be talking to about this.”

Snape sighed. “Very well, what is it that he said to you?”

“He said that I’m like him. That if I had actually been sorted in Slytherin I would have been exactly like him.” Pansy mumbled, picking at the bark of the tree next to her. “Do you believe him?” Snape asked bluntly. Pansy frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

Snape nodded. “Listen, Parkinson, I don’t know for sure that you wouldn’t have been like him if you were sorted into Slytherin but the fact of the matter is that you are in Gryffindor and are clearly nothing like him.” Pansy hummed. “But...I am similar to him. I can speak to snakes-”

“Having a faculty that you share with people other than him does not make you so similar to the point that you will start killing muggle-borns.” Snape cut in. “If you keep telling yourself that he is right then yes, you will eventually turn into him. And that is not what you want to become correct?”

Pansy nodded. “I get that professor. I just still don’t understand why the hat put me in Gryffindor, what good can I do in a house that I have no relation to?” Snape let out an uncharacteristic chuckle. “Parkinson, one of the main characteristics of Gryffindor is to be reckless and brave. These are two things that you have shown plenty over these last two years. And I’m sure Dumbledore hasn’t told you but only a true Gryffindor could have pulled Godric Gryffindor’s sword out of the sorting hat.”

“Wait.” Pansy started. “That sword belonged to Godric Gryffindor? As in one of the founders of Hogwarts?” Snape nodded in amusement. “Yes. Also, speak to your father a little. I’m sure he would be happy to tell you about his late brother who was also sorted into Gryffindor.” Pansy frowned. “My father had a brother?”

Snape hummed in acknowledgment. “He passed a few years ago. Regardless, this is something you should speak to your father about.” Pansy grinned up at the Potions Master. “Thanks for the pep-talk sir, I’m going to go.” Snape offered her a curt nod. “Enjoy the rest of your evening Parkinson. And next time you want to speak about such issues I would recommend going to your Head of House but my door will be open to you if you need assistance.”

“Thanks. Good night professor,” Pansy said as she headed towards the Gryffindor Common room. This was the last night she would spend in the castle before the next term began and she definitely wanted to make the most out of it.

***-***-***

“I can’t believe it’s actually been two years since I met you all,” Harry said happily as they sorted through the snacks they had gotten from the trolley on the Express.

Pansy laughed. “Yeah. I’m sure McGonagall’s blood pressure would have also appreciated if we never met.” Ron snorted as he ate a chocolate frog. “You’re probably right. I imagine that we wouldn’t be in this many dangerous situations if we never met.” Hermione stated. Pansy shrugged. “You’d miss my face too much if we tried to stay away from each other at this point.”

“I see that your vanity knows no bound Parkinson.” Ron joked. Pansy rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and eat your food, Weasley.”

Pansy let out a sigh of relief when she only saw her father waiting for her at King’s Cross station. “Which one is your dad Pansy?” Hermione asked. Pansy frowned. “Why?” Hermione raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t met him yet so I would like to at least greet him properly.”

Ron snickered at the guilty look on Pansy’s face. “Oh, right. I forgot.”

“Hi, Pansy,” Phillip said as he wrapped Pansy in a hug. “It’s nice to see you too father. This is Hermione Granger, she’s one of my housemates.”

Phillip smiled down at Hermione and shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger, can I trust that you are the one keeping Pansy out of trouble?” Hermione chuckled. “I try. It’s nice to meet you as well Mr. Parkinson.”

While Hermione and her father were talking, pansy was pulled to the side by Harry along with Ron. “What is it, Harry?” The boy held out a piece of paper to each of them. A few numbers were messily scrawled on them. “What is this?” Harry pointed at the numbers. “This is called a phone number, you can use it to call me during the summer.”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Can’t I use an owl?” Harry chuckled. “I don’t know how my uncle is going to react if an owl is constantly entering my room but you can try. I gave you this just in case you can’t owl me.” Ron nodded. “I’m sure I can get my dad to get a...phone was it?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah.” Pansy shrugged. “I suppose this would be for the best. I don’t think I can count on Draco to save me from anymore awkward family meetings.” Ron frowned. “Why?” pansy gestured towards the other end of the station where Draco was standing with his mother. “He’s been giving me the cold shoulder for the last three months. I think he’s angry that I’m spending more time with you.”

Ron shrugged unhelpfully. “Who cares what he thinks. We’ll still be there for you no matter what.” Pansy chuckled. “Right. Thanks but I think I should probably leave before my father starts telling embarrassing stories about me to Granger.”

“Bye, Pansy,” Harry said, waving at her as she walked away. Ron saluted. “Make sure you get the newest broom again for next year.” Pansy laughed, waving at them both. “I will. See you later guys.”

Phillip smiled at Pansy as she approached him. “Pansy, why didn’t you tell me that your friend here is absolutely brilliant?” Pansy shrugged. “It never came up. Can we go? I want to see if Naga is okay.”

“Of course.” Phillip nodded. “It was nice meeting you, Miss Granger.” Hermione smiled at him. “Same here Mr. Parkinson.”

Hermione hugged Pansy tightly. “Have a nice summer, Pansy.” The green-eyed witch hugged her back and chuckled. “You too darling, and don’t hesitate to owl me if you want to talk okay?” Hermione nodded. “I will, bye.”

Phillip eyed Pansy with a small smile as they walked away from King’s Cross station. “So...is she more than a friend or am I reading too much into it?”

Pansy blushed. “She’s just a friend, father. Besides, she’s a muggle-born.” Phillip shrugged. “You can choose to court whoever you want Pansy, muggle-born or not.” Pansy shrugged. “Okay father, can we go?”

Phillip dropped the conversation, seeing the slight distress that Pansy was emitting. He held his hand out towards her which Pansy grabbed. The next second, a crack was heard as they apparated away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for part 2! I'll try to get part 3 up by next week but with my current attention span, no promises.
> 
> As always, feel free to leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter!


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